Looking a lot like how Hollywood might portray an invasion by space aliens, videos began surfacing Sunday of strange fireballs streaking across the night sky over Hawaii islands.
News reports from the Honolulu TV station KHON2 and news source MauiNow.com peg the light source as space debris burning up in the atmosphere.
According to information released by the DoD’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB in CA, the object was likely the Cosmos 1315 payload launched in 1981. Gene Stansbery, Program Manager for NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office confirmed the report with Maui Now this morning.
Great light show! But how do they know the source of the space junk that burned up? Well, NASA tracks as much of it as they can locate because …
More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft.
The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard.
But, not all sources of “lights” in space are as well understood. For instance:
And …
Of course some of those fireballs in the sky are not as harmless as small space junk!
Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1X6LVya
Looking a lot like how Hollywood might portray an invasion by space aliens, videos began surfacing Sunday of strange fireballs streaking across the night sky over Hawaii islands.
News reports from the Honolulu TV station KHON2 and news source MauiNow.com peg the light source as space debris burning up in the atmosphere.
According to information released by the DoD’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB in CA, the object was likely the Cosmos 1315 payload launched in 1981. Gene Stansbery, Program Manager for NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office confirmed the report with Maui Now this morning.
Great light show! But how do they know the source of the space junk that burned up? Well, NASA tracks as much of it as they can locate because …
More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft.
The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard.
But, not all sources of “lights” in space are as well understood. For instance:
And …
Of course some of those fireballs in the sky are not as harmless as small space junk!
Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1X6LVya
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