A Chinese rocket body streaking across the night sky over the western United States lit up social media as people shared photos and video of the bright object.
The Chinese CZ-7 re-entered the atmosphere on Wednesday night, US Strategic Command spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn confirmed.
That's when people in Nevada, Utah and California took to social media to report a fireball streaking across the sky.
Photographer Ian Norman was taking pictures of the night sky with friends in Alabama Hills, California, near the eastern Sierra Nevada, when he saw the light and started recording.
"It was really strange to see something that bright," he said Thursday. "I thought it was just a really big meteor, but it was so slow moving. I had never seen anything like that."
The former SpaceX engineer said it was the first re-entry he'd seen.
"It was a cool experience. It was beautiful to see it going across the sky," Norman said.
Further east in Utah, Matt Holt was outside a public library in Provo amid a large group playing Pokemon Go when he noticed the bright, colourful flash of light. Others spotted it, too.
"I've never seen space debris," said Holt, a student at Brigham Young University. "It looked kind of like a meteor, but it was going much slower."
It had lasted for about a minute.
"I was excited. I was in awe at the science of space," he said on Thursday.
The rocket took off on June 25 from China's Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, according to the website of the Aerospace Corp.
In announcing the launch of the new-generation rocket, China said it kept it on schedule to place its second space station into orbit this year.
Rockets heading to orbit shed components that fall back to Earth. Components that fall back from space at high speed heat up due to friction with the atmosphere and break up as increasing density causes a rapid slowdown. But some pieces may survive.
Of 27 previous re-entries this year, witnesses reported seeing five, according to the Aerospace Corp. website.
Most recently the body of a Russian rocket launched in mid-July from Baikonur cosmodrome was spotted by people in New Zealand's South Island during its re-entry several days later.
