Fireball in sky is space debris

Strategic Command spokesman Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell said the Joint Space Operation Center has been tracking the rocket pieces as well as 16,000 other pieces of space debris.

The light spotted in and around Las Vegas was reportedly seen as far away as Bakersfield and Sacramento in California.

The mystery light looks similar to one seen on November 7, when hundreds of people reported seeing an unexplained moving object in the sky.

“Big big #fireball moved in the sky very slow with a #streak over ventura”, tweeted @issradio.

The reporting assignment was odd, mostly because it came from the owners of Las Vegas’ main newspaper: Take three reporters off their beats and have them closely follow three judges.

“Who else just saw this s**t?”

“Donald Trump has (finally) had a bright idea”. According to ABC News, the fireball was caused by some debris falling from a Russian rocket.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket booster was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on December 21 at 08:44 (GMT). They say it was part of the body of an old SL4 rocket.

Before the statement by the USA defense authorities, astronomers had speculated that it could be a meteor. Many social media users shared videos and photos, and before military authorities issued a statement, speculation flourished online.

The Huffington Post speculated tongue-in-cheek that it could be Santa making a re-entry. “We had a meteor shower a week and a half ago, the Geminid meteor shower”.

The meteor shower began december 13 and would last about two weeks, CNN reports, but it was expected to peak in the first couple days.