California, Mar 19: Mysterious streaks of light were seen in the sky in the Sacramento area on Friday night, shocking St. Patrick's Day revellers who then posted videos on social media of the surprising sight.
Jaime Hernandez was at the King Cong Brewing Company in Sacramento for a St. Patrick's Day celebration when some among the group noticed the lights. Hernandez quickly began filming. It was over in about 40 seconds, he said on Saturday.
"Mainly, we were in shock, but amazed that we got to witness it," Hernandez said in an email. "None of us had ever seen anything like it."
The brewery owner posted Hernandez's video to Instagram, asking if anyone could solve the mystery.
Jonathan McDowell says he can. McDowell is an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. McDowell said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that he's 99.9 per cent confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris.
McDowell said that a Japanese communications package that relayed information from the International Space Station to a communications satellite and then back to Earth became obsolete in 2017 when the satellite was retired.
The equipment, weighing 310 kilograms (683 pounds), was jettisoned from the space station in 2020 because it was taking up valuable space and would burn up completely upon reentry, McDowell added.
The flaming bits of wreckage created a "spectacular light show in the sky", McDowell said. He estimated the debris was about 40 miles high, going thousands of miles per hour.
The US Space Force confirmed the re-entry path over California for the Inter-Orbit Communication System, and the timing is consistent with what people saw in the sky, he added. The Space Force could not immediately be reached Saturday with questions.
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Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump on Friday said he had a "very good conversation" with his "friend" Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He was referring to the talks the two leaders had on Tuesday.
"I had a very good talk with him, and he's a friend of mine from India, and he's doing great. We had a very good conversation," Trump told reporters here as he headed to Las Vegas to address a roundtable on tax cuts.
Trump had called Modi on Tuesday to discuss the bilateral relationship and share perspectives on the situation in West Asia, where the US and Israel have launched a war on Iran.
The US and Iran declared a two-week ceasefire on April 7. They engaged in peace talks with Washington, insisting that Tehran give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment.
The war with Iran has sent gas prices soaring as Tehran blocked the sea lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow gateway for a fifth of global oil supplies.
During the Trump-Modi phone call on Tuesday, the two leaders stressed the importance of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and secure.
According to the US Ambassador to India Sergei Gor, the 40-minute conversation ended with Trump telling Modi, "we all love you".
Tuesday's phone call was the second between the two leaders since the US-Israel war with Iran began on February 28.
