ORLANDO, Fla. — Early Saturday morning, residents in Central Florida witnessed a streak of light across the sky, which was visible from Tampa to Jacksonville and even South Georgia.
There was speculation initially since it wasn’t from a planned space launch, which was halted just seconds before it was set to occur.
According to Spectrum News 13 Meteorologist Zach Covey, a review of trajectory maps determined that the fireball likely came from China’s third stage rocket launched in December 2019.
“We knew today that rocket was losing altitude, coming very close to Earth’s atmosphere,” Covey said. “We’re fairly confident. I’m not going to say 100% until we can verify this, but based off of all the information that I know, I would suspect that this was China’s third stage rocket from a launch back in December of 2019.”
A Chinese Long March 3B 3rd stage reentered Earth near Florida’s east coast. This reentry occurred prior to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch and likely did not contribute to the abort, as Falcon 9 was in internal count. However, the reentry was seen by plenty across Central Florida. pic.twitter.com/6f2MEvboyZ
— Zach Covey (@ZachCoveyTV) November 8, 2025