Mystery Solved? Chinese Rocket Reentry Said To Be Behind Streak Of Light

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — It looks like a mysterious streak of light seen in the night sky across Southern California and several U.S. states has been identified.

Video and images posted on social media showed what appeared to be a small fireball streaking across the sky shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Officials from Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada said the light was a meteor breaking up, while Dr. Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, told reporters it may have been a meteor from the Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower, which was peaking on Wednesday night.

But later the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City said "The object in question was not a meteor but rather a piece of space junk."

The NWS retweeted Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who tweeted, "Observation reports from Utah indicate the second stage from the first Chang Zheng 7 rocket, launched June 25."

People were tweeting photos and videos of the small fiery dot in the sky from northern and southern California as well as Nevada and Utah.

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