People left baffled after mysterious explosion lights up California sky
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: X/@Joeys_Vibe
Incredible footage shows a series of lights streaking across the California sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The shocking moment was captured on video, showing several objects burning up across the sky, leaving burning trails behind them.
People immediately speculated as to what exactly had caused the mysterious shower to appear in the sky.
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One person posted a clip of the incident, assuming that it was a meteor shower.
They wrote: "Meteor , meteor shower in SoCal… So Dope to see."
The incident happened at around 1.45am on Tuesday morning.
This was not long after a launch by SpaceX, leading to others to wrongly suggest that it was due to something going wrong on the launch.
So what exactly was this mysterious object from space?
Sadly, it wasn't something quite so romantic as a meteor shower, and fortunately it wasn't because a launch had gone wrong.
And no, it wasn't aliens either, before you ask.
The Aerospace Corporation, a non-profit organisation funded by the US, provided an explanation as to the origin of the objects which lit up the sky.
It said that it was likely a result of 'space junk'.
'Space junk' is the remains of satellites or any other human-made object orbiting the Earth which re-enters the atmosphere, where it burns up or crashes.
We've come a long way since first launching satellites into space, and the Earth is now surrounded by artificial objects.
While some of these are satellites used for things like navigation, weather observation, and scientific research, a lot of them are just space trash.
From the deepest ocean to the highest skies, humanity's reach has become truly without bounds.
In this case, the junk was the remains of a Chinese launch.
A statement from the Aerosapce Corporation said: "Our analysis suggests that the object seen re-entering over Los Angeles this morning was the orbital module from the November 2022 Chinese Shenzhou-15 launch to their space station."
The Corporation was able to identify the object using data from the USSF 18th Space Defense Squadron.
An estimate of the object's size put it as having a weight of around 3,300lbs (1,500kg).
That's a lot of space junk.
If any survived entering the atmosphere then it is likely to have landed in the Pacific Ocean.
There were not any reports that debris hit land.
Speaking to the BBC, University of Southern California space relations expert Madhu Thangavelu warned that the increased amount of space traffic means that more care will need to be taken in future.
He added he was hoping it had 'burnt out in the upper atmosphere'.