A strange "lightshow" left people from the East Coast startled. The slow-moving object, which was first thought to be a fireball, lit the Georgia skies for at least 50 seconds. Videos of the incident were posted online and were shared through social media sites. Several speculations were made as to what the object really is. According to Northwest GA News, the incident happened around 1:30 a.m. ET.
ABC News reported that the mysterious object travelled at the speed of 14,500 mph and according to William Cooke, from the NASA Meteroid Environment Office, the speed of 14,500 mph is "pretty fast but it's too slow to be a meteor." Cooke added, "It was possibly reentry of space junk." Cooke also said that a typical meteor travels at a speed of at least 20,000 miles per hour.
The flashes of light were seen in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina and AJC added that Martin O'Donnell, spokesman from the United States Strategic Command, issued a statement, saying the object that was seen across the skies was actually a body of a rocket that accidentally re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
An astronomer from the Tellus Science Museum, David Dundee, said, "There's a lot of old stuff kicking around up there." Dundee added that there were at least 120 people from the East Coast who saw the incident.
The "space junk" or, more specifically, a part of the SL-6 rocket that was launched more than ten years ago and lit the skies recently has been removed from the United States satellite catalog.
There were some eyewitness who thought that the "flash of light" was a plane that's on fire and was about to crash and burn. Others described it as a slow-moving shooting star.
It is believed that there are more than 300,000 debris circling the Earth's orbit at any given time.
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