This story was updated at 5:46 p.m. EST.
The falling
remains of two satellites obliterated in a devastating space collision last week
may be behind weekend reports of fireballs spotted over parts of Texas and
Kentucky, local media and weather officials said Sunday.
Earlier
today, residents across parts of central Texas reported numerous sightings of a
bright fireball streaking across the daytime sky, according to several accounts
by local television stations and newspapers. The Federal Aviation Authorities
(FAA) issued an advisory to aircraft pilots on Saturday alerting them of potential
hazards from re-entering debris from the in-space collision
of two satellites last Tuesday.
Texas's KBTX
News 10 station reported numerous sightings from residents who spotted the fireballs
or heard rumbling sounds earlier on Sunday. The Waco Tribune-Herald
newspaper cited reports from residents who described hearing an explosion-like sound
that rattled windows and shook houses. In both reports, FAA officials
attributed the sightings as stemming from re-entering debris from the satellite
collision, though none of the debris appeared to fall all the way to the
ground.
Last week, the
defunct Russian military satellite Cosmos 2251 slammed into the active U.S.
communications satellite Iridium 33 as they flew about 490 miles (790 km) above
Siberia. The collision destroyed both
satellites, creating two large clouds of debris made up of hundreds of
individual pieces, some of which may remain in
orbit for up to 10,000 years, Russian mission experts have said.
Officials
at the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the U.S. Defense Department's
Space Surveillance Network that continuously tracks the more than 18,000 separate
pieces of space debris in orbit today, said they did receive a report of the Texas
sightings on Sunday.
U.S. Air
Force Lt. Col. Terry Plumb, a spokesperson for the U.S. Strategic Command, told
SPACE.com that the center received a 911 call from just outside Houston, Texas, but
was awaiting confirmation that it was actually caused by debris from the
Iridium 33-Cosmos 2251 satellite crash.
"We haven't
received any official reports here yet," Plumb said.
Late Friday,
similar sky sightings were also received by National Weather Service (NWS) centers
in parts of Kentucky. Like Sunday's reports, the descriptions of explosions in
the sky and earthquake-like rumbles were attributed to the likely re-entry of debris
from the satellite collision, NWS officials in Jackson, Kentucky said in a
statement.
"The
Federal Aviation Administration has reported to local law enforcement that these
events are being caused by falling satellite debris," the announcement stated. "These
pieces of debris have been causing sonic booms ... resulting in the vibrations
being felt by some residents ... as well as flashes of light across the sky."
A phone
call to the FAA's Southern Region branch, which includes Kentucky and other
southern and eastern states, was not immediately returned Sunday.
Brian Schoettmer,
a meteorologist with the Jackson NWS office, told SPACE.com that
residents across several counties in eastern central Kentucky called their
local NWS branches to report the odd sky sightings.
"This was a
pretty rare call," Schoettmer said, adding that the FAA told his office that
the reports may have been caused by falling debris from the satellite crash. "Really
rare, actually."
NASA
scientists are tracking
the debris from last week's satellite crash to determine the risk it poses to
the many science and communications satellites in Earth orbit, including the
Hubble Space Telescope. The debris also slightly raised the chances of debris damaging
the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of
about 220 miles (354 km) - much lower than the satellite crash site - but the increase
in risk is relatively minor, NASA officials have said.
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