Fabulous fireball streaking across western skies was debris from a Russian rocket

Residents from across California and as far away as Las Vegas reported seeing a bright light in the sky Tuesday evening that an astronomer first called a “meteor” and a government official later clarified was sort of Russian space debris.

U.S. Strategic Command said the light was caused by a Russian SL-4 rocket body that reentered the atmosphere somewhere above Arizona at around 7:08 p.m. MT (9:08 p.m. ET).

YouTube user Sonny Black posted this video of the rocket over Las Vegas on December 22, 2015.

There were other viewers in Yuma that also saw the fireball.

“It’s not something people need to worry about”, said David Wright, a space-debris expert.

Some experts initially stated that the mystery light was part of the Ursid meteor shower, which was expected to peak on Tuesday night.

He added that other inquiries regarding the SL-4 rocket space debris should be directed to the Russian Federal Space Agency. If it survived, its location is still unknown, according to the U.S. Strategic Command.

An unmanned Russian cargo ship lifted off Monday from that nation’s space launch complex in Kazakhstan on a journey to the International Space Station. “Light just popped in the sky split up and into 3 and disappeared”. The military said that light was an unarmed missile from a submarine off the Southern California coast.

The same areas got a good view of a US military missile test two weeks ago in New Mexico that produced a white contrail across the sky.