NASA's falling satellite caught on video?
Amateur video purports to show a few dozen pieces of the broken-up satellite on their way to a final resting place, perhaps somewhere in the Canadian wilderness?
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
We're generally skeptical of any video of strange lights in the sky, but this one is worth a gander. A family in Okotoks, Alberta--a suburb of Calgary--believes they caught footage of the fiery death spasms of NASA's UARS satellite, parts of which returned to earth early Saturday morning after two decades in orbit.
We can't confirm this video actually shows UARS' final descent. It's certainly out of the ordinary, but it's also not consistent with reports that the satellite likely fell in the Pacific Ocean before reaching Canada. NASA says that other amateur satellite watchers in Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States were keeping an eye out for UARS, but none actually spotted it--suggesting it did in fact fall in the ocean. Or maybe it was just saving the show for Okotoks...
Watch for yourself --does this look like speeding space junk on fire? Or just some distant street lamps and jittery camerawork?