Was that fireball in the sky a comet, missile, rocket or what?

Social media lit up about stories of a fireball streaking across the sky on Wednesday evening just after 9:30 p.m. A flaming image across the sky could be seen by people from Colorado to California, with most not knowing the cause, but admiring the beauty.

The "fireball" was actually space junk from China's newest satellite launcher a Chinese CZ-7 rocket that re-entered the atmosphere at 9:36 p.m. PST. According to the Associated Press, the rocket was launched from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in China on June 25 and was expected to reenter on July 28.

The object disintegrated into numerous chunks before disappearing. The relatively slow speed of the fireball — it took nearly a minute to cross the sky — ruled out a natural origin, experts said.

The 174-foot-tall rocket is tailored to send medium-class payloads into low Earth orbit and will become a centerpiece in China’s new family of launch vehicles that will eventually replace the country’s aging decades-old rocket designs.

According to Jonathan McDowell, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. the rocket segment that was seen Wednesday night measured 36 feet long and 11 feet in diameter. After consuming its liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants during launch, the rocket fragment’s mass was likely around 13,000 pounds.

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