UFOs in northern California

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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/lights-in-the-sky-above-northern-california/103-b5497e3f-9d08-4bea-9bbf-806b7531f790
What were those lights in the sky above Northern California? Experts say space junk.
Viewers from all across the region sent us photos and videos all asking ‘what is this?’ ABC10 looked into it.

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Author: Krys Shahin
Published: 10:55 PM PDT March 17, 2023
Updated: 11:10 PM PDT March 17, 2023
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Folks out celebrating Saint Patrick's Day or enjoying the start to their weekend in Northern California got a cosmic show Friday night when streaks of light soared across the sky.

Viewers from all across the region sent us photos and videos all asking ‘what is this?’ ABC10 looked into it.

Jonathan McDowell is an Astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and says this essentially was space junk from a 2009 launch of ICS-EF.

“This was pieces of a package that was jettisoned from a space station about 3 years ago,” said McDowell. “It was moving at about 17,000 mph… What you're seeing is it broken into pieces about 40 miles up.”

    This is ICS-EF, a Japanese communications package for sending data between the ISS Kibo module and Mission Control Tsukuba via the Kodama data relay satellite. It was launched to the ISS on the Space Shuttle in 2009 and had a mass of 310 kg. pic.twitter.com/ygzHdmfQc0
    — Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) March 18, 2023

The package served to send data between the ISS Kibo module and Mission Control Tsukuba via the Kodama data relay satellite, according to Robert Lunsford from the American Meteor Society.

This communications box has been on the Space Force and astrophysicists radars for quite some time, but McDowell says no warning was issued due to the guessing nature of where it would come in.

Trajectory tracking expected it to come in above Chico. The streaks were seen around 9:30 p.m. from the Bay Area up to Shingle Springs, according to our viewers.

So will it hit the ground? Maybe, but not likely, according to McDowell.

“It will probably melt entirely, but a few bits could reach the ground in Yosemite,” he said.

Send us your photos and videos by using our free ABC10 app or emailing us as desk@abc10.com!

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