Expert: Jesse Martinez - 12/14/2009

Question
Hello Jesse
I was wondering if you could help me with a question please, On Wednesday 9th dec, in the evening at 23:00-23:30 or there abouts, I witnessed a 'shooting star' heading north, about 2 mins later another light appeared it went dashing across the night sky roughly in the same position / area as the 'shooting star', only this one was not as any I have seen before,the colour wasn't the hot white glow as I see in a 'shooting star', instead this was Ultra violet blue with a deep red inner, I watched it for about 10-15 seconds, when it disapeared it left a cylinder 'contrail' poof of smoke, which disapeared after about 4 seconds or so.
I have never seen this kind of light before and so I thought I would ask the expert.. : ) Do you have any idea's ?

Kind regards

Debs

Answer
Hi Debs, I believe I can help. I do not think it is Cosmic. I have seen this before.

This event does not coincide with any known meteor shower, nor does it seem like an ordinary meteor event. You describe what seems to be man-made space debris re-entering the earth's atmosphere and burning up. Compare your description with my account of a similar object I observed in 1988.

"An object appeared in the sky, almost directly north about 20 degrees above the horizon. At first it looked like a meteor, but after a second it was apparent that it was not just a simple meteor. It moved slowly. At first it was yellow then shifted to red. It followed a path that was from almost north to past west, passing the quarter moon. At mid point in its path, it was a fireball about as wide as the moon, with a tail that was as long as my outstretched hand span. It took about 10 to 12 seconds to slowly cross the sky until it started to fade. It rapidly dimmed and appeared to break up into a few pieces that faded like dying embers to infrared, leaving a trail of faintly visible smoke or vapor about 10 degrees above the horizon. There was no sound". A friend of mine in the newspaper business later told me it was confirmed that the object was Russian space junk.

What you describe, especially the length of time it was visible and the vapor are two things I have seen with all my three observations. By they way, the other to were also confirmed as space junk. I'm sure yours is too. You should see if you can research this and find out what it was.

Your observation was fairly well documented. It is a great help in situations where something strange happens. Keep watching the skies. You never know what you will see.