BATON ROUGE - A ball of fire streaked across Capital area skies on Saturday night. Residents could see the orange glow fly through the night-time sky around 10 p.m.
Astronomers are now weighing in, and they say it was a Chinese commercial satellite (Superview 1-02) which reentered Earth's atmosphere. It passed overhead near New Orleans shortly before 10:10 p.m. CST Saturday. The object broke into several pieces as it burned up in the upper atmosphere and very likely never made it to the ground.
The low-orbit satellite was launched on December 28, 2016. This type of satellite requires periodic boosts from engines to remain in orbit. The Superview 1-02 was shut off over a year ago and fell into Earth's atmosphere with time.
Satellite reentries are common. In fact, 200-400 are big enough to be tracked each year. Superview 1-02 was one of those objects.
This was the likely culprit from the beginning. Our team of Storm Station Meteorologists suggested that the fiery object probably a satellite or space debris reentry late on Saturday night.
"I don't think it's a comet or meteor," Meteorologist Malcolm Byron said. "When these fireballs last for more than 10 seconds, it's often a satellite or other space junk reentering the atmosphere. Not confirmed, but that's my hypothesis. We're working to confirm what the object is. I've seen at least one report of it in Arkansas, which means this object is positioned very high in the sky."
