Mysterious fireball spotted by hundreds from Reno to Bay Area

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Mysterious fireball spotted by hundreds from Reno to Bay Area
Gillian Mohney
SFGate
Fri, September 26, 2025 at 12:08 PM EDT
2 min read



A streak of light was seen in the sky over the Bay Area on Thursday evening, Sept. 25, 2025, as shown in this photo taken in Sunnyvale, Calif. (Kacie N. via amsmeteors.org)


A fireball lit up the night sky for hundreds of miles over California on Thursday night, stunning onlookers in its path.

More than 200 people from San Francisco to Reno reported seeing the celestial phenomenon, according to the American Meteor Society. Multiple people filmed the fiery object as it moved eastward, with the first reports coming in around 7:50 p.m. Thursday evening.

Videos of the fireball revealed a long, slow-moving object, white and orange in color, that broke up into smaller parts as it descended.

The mysterious object wasn't a naturally occurring meteorite, but a Starlink satellite falling back to Earth, the American Meteor Society reported. Multiple Starlink satellites were predicted to reenter the Earth's atmosphere on Thursday evening, according to the Aerospace Corporation database, which tracks satellites returning to Earth.

One way to tell the difference between a meteor and a bit of human-made space debris is to look at how fast the object moves and whether it breaks up, according to the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation. A meteor generally is much faster, moving at around 67,000 mph, compared to 17,500 mph for human-made debris.

"If there appear to be a tight cluster of bright points all moving in the same direction at similar speeds, and all leaving streaks behind them, then it is very probably a reentry breakup," the Aerospace Corporation said.

SpaceX, which makes the Starlink satellites, had not responded to an email request for more information at the time of publication.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/mysterious-fireball-spotted-hundreds-reno-160836164.html