Mystery solved after strange streaks of light seen in the sky over Sacramento

Mysterious streaks of light were seen in the sky in the Sacramento area on March 17, 2023, and were captured on social media.

An astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Jonathan McDowell, said he's 99.9% confident the streaks of light were from burning space debris.

He said that a Japanese communications package weighing 683 pounds was jettisoned from the International Space Station in 2020 and created a “spectacular light show in the sky”.

The U.S. Space Force confirmed the re-entry path over California for the Inter-Orbit Communication System, and the timing is consistent with what people saw in the sky.