A fireball streaking across the midwestern sky was probably a Russian spacecraft

Image for article: A fireball streaking across the midwestern sky was probably a Russian spacecraft

Daniel Payne

Oct 22, 2021

If you live in the midwestern United States, you may have caught a stunning glimpse of this bad boy streaking its way over the cosmos this week:

And yes, that's correct: It was a satellite, not a meteor. NASA on its Facebook page wrote:

This event was not caused by a natural object; it was produced by the reentry and fragmentation of a satellite over that area of the country

According to the New York Times, the object "was probably a recently launched Russian military satellite that had been showing signs of failure."

Sorry for your troubles, Russia!