Video shows object streak across the sky in California that raised questions
A San Joaquin County woman spotted a mysterious object streaking across the sky that seemed unusual.
At around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Ripon resident Tammy Pimentel looked up to see the quickly moving object. Doorbell video recorded the "fireball-like" for nearly 20 seconds.
"I was outside changing batteries for my Halloween decorations and when I looked up in the sky, I saw this bright white object," Pimentel said. "At first I thought it was a shooting star, but I noticed it didn't fade, it kept going across the sky."
We shared the video video with Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society's Raj Dixit to get his take.
"It fit the pattern of a bolide, which is a bright meteor that can be seen for several seconds streaking across the sky, and this, although dim, it fit the pattern and profile," Dixit said.
Brighter and bigger than your typical shooting star or meteor, a bolide can be sharp and bright depending on how dark the skies are.
Dixit could also reasonably rule out the meteor mystery being space junk entering the Earth's atmosphere since NASA tracks such things.
"You may recall that around Saint Patrick's Day earlier this year, there was an old Japanese satellite that broke up and could be seen from Sacramento all the way to Reno," Dixit said. "When that kind of debris falls, it breaks off into multiple pieces and you see lots of chunks flying and lots of points of light flying."
In this instance, Dixit says there was one solid object streaking across the sky.
"That leads me to believe this is a meteor and not a satellite," Dixit said.
