Video of streak of light over Jackson on Thursday, Sept. 25 at 6:30 a.m. Video: Colleen Valenstein
JACKSON, Wyo. — In the early morning hours of Thursday, Sept. 25, a meteor-sized object, possibly space debris, entered the skies above Jackson Hole, burning up as it hit the earth’s atmosphere.
A couple of Buckrail readers shared their videos of the energetically charged object. Resident Colleen Valenstein witnessed the streak of light above east Jackson at 6:30 a.m.
Jackson resident Will Broeder was out walking his dog in east Jackson when he captured the ball of light.
Video: Will Broeder
Astronomer and Wyoming Stargazing Executive Director Samuel Singer shared with Buckrail the possible origins of the object, after watching the acquired video footage.
Singer said that the chunk of matter was either a bolide — an extremely bright meteor that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere — or nonorganic space debris. He estimated that the burning material was either fist-sized or bowling ball-sized.
“The extent that I am seeing something break up, leads you to believe that it was an oblong metallic object,” Singer said. “I would say space debris because of the length of time it is taking to break up. I would say it’s metal and not natural.”
Singer did not rule out that the visible fireball could have been natural space matter. He said that bolides can enter the earth’s atmosphere randomly throughout the year.
“Over the past dozen years, I’ve probably seen one of these bolides every year,” Singer said. “They come down all the time, but they’re usually not seen because they’re in the middle of the night. They kind of look like gun flares.”
Singer said that shooting stars, which are left over from planets or asteroids from an older solar system, “buzz through our solar system” at extremely high speeds, approximately 25,000 to 65,000 miles an hour. While most shooting stars are the size of a grain of sand, bolides can be the size of a walnut. Singer explained that a bolide needs to be much larger than a walnut, though, to make it through the earth’s atmosphere as a meteorite.
To accurately identify the object’s contents, Singer said that a photo of the object’s spectrum or wavelengths would be needed to assess whether it was elements of carbon and iron or steel composite. He said that his gut was telling him that the object was a piece of metal, breaking up as it flew through space.
Singer said that showers of space debris happen for a variety of reasons, one being from decommissioned satellites. According to NASA, engineers will use a satellite’s last bit of fuel to slow it down so it will fall out of orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. Satellites that are farther in space are sent away from the Earth’s atmosphere.
“When a satellite gets decommissioned, sometimes it gets left in orbit,” Singer said. “Other times it gets deliberately crashed into the oceans.”
Singer said that another reason for burning chunks of metal in the skies could be due to a failing satellite that has fallen into the earth’s atmosphere.
Singer said that breaking apart satellites can cause millions of pieces of space debris. He said that Donald J. Kessler, an American astrophysicist and former NASA scientist, developed a theory now known as the Kessler effect, which states that the accumulation of metal space debris could reach a “critical mass,” increasing collisions and potentially causing the destruction of all the satellites.
Regardless of what this morning’s celestial object was made of, the visible light emanating off of it was caused by friction, Singer said.
“As it’s encountering the earth’s atmosphere from the vacuum of space, it starts encountering a huge amount of resistance from the molecules in the earth’s atmosphere,” Singer said. “At the atomic level, the atoms and the electrons around the atoms are being excited because of that heat energy. It’s not actually on fire, it’s this light energy being released.”
Singer added that when electrons bump up to higher energy states and then fall back down to ground energy states, they give off a photon, which is a particle of light.
“That’s the light that you see from all shooting stars, bolides and space debris,” Singer said.
According to Singer, these objects typically burn up in the atmosphere before having the chance to hit the ground. Approximately 30 years ago, one such meteorite was reported to hit the ground near Lizard Creek Campground in Grand Teton National Park, according to Singer. He emphasized that it is extremely rare for an asteroid or piece of space debris to cause any damage.