Mysterious streaks of light seen in the sky over California
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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Rupee falls 21 paise to 91.29 against US dollar in early trade
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Mumbai (PTI): The rupee depreciated 21 paise to 91.29 against the US dollar on Monday, amid higher crude oil prices, a strong American currency and intense global volatility due to the escalated Middle East tension.
Negative equity market sentiment and massive withdrawal of foreign funds also weighed on the Indian currency, forex traders said.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 91.23 and declined further to 91.29 against the greenback in initial deals, trading 21 paise down from its previous closing level.
On Friday, the rupee lost 17 paise to settle at 91.08 against the dollar.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.22 per cent higher at 97.78.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was up 3.91 per cent at 76.78 per barrel in futures trade.
Analysts said that crude prices soared after the US and Israel launched military strikes against Iran.
In the latest strike, the US and Israel forces pounded targets across Iran on Sunday, dropping massive bombs on the country's ballistic missile sites and wiping out warships. The attack was intensified after the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Experts say that India faces the risk of a sharp increase in its import bill with the rising crude prices in the international market as the country's 85 per cent fuel requirement is met through imports.
On the domestic equity market front, the Sensex tumbled 691.47 points or 0.85 per cent to 80,595.72, while Nifty tanked 240.95 points or 0.96 per cent to 24,937.70 in early trade.
On Friday, foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 7,536.36 crore, according to exchange data.
According to the government data released on Friday following a revamp of the GDP calculation framework, the country's economic growth has been projected at 7.6 per cent in the currency fiscal.
The latest RBI data released on Friday showed India's forex reserve dropped by USD 2.119 billion to USD 723.608 billion during the week ended February 20. The overall reserves had jumped by USD 8.663 billion to an all-time high of USD 725.727 billion in the previous reporting week.
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