A green light shot across Minnesota's sky. An MPR News reporter saw it and sought to learn more
A piece of space debris is caught on a webcamera of Split Rock Lighthouse on Dec. 6.
Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: Well, this past Saturday, people across Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin saw a long flash of sparkling white and green light trail across the night sky. People captured it on video. It went viral on social media, but no one was exactly sure what it was-- a meteor, a comet, Santa doing a test run with Rudolph? Well, MPR News Duluth reporter Dan Kraker made it his mission to find out. And he joins me now as part of our check in that we like to do with our regional reporters. Hey, Dan.
DAN KRAKER: Hey it's good to be with you, Nina.
NINA MOINI: So this sounds like it was kind of cool to see. Did you see it? How did you first learn about this?
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, I actually did see it.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DAN KRAKER: And it was pretty lucky. I was just walking out my door Saturday night. It was just after 6 o'clock. And I happened to look out over Lake Superior, right when this bright, sparkling, white kind of ball was streaking across the sky. It had this real bright green color to it. And it wasn't like a shooting star where it's kind of there, and it's gone in a split second. This lasted for 10 seconds as it kind of just moved slowly across the sky until it eventually disappeared.
It was wild, Nina. But I was in a hurry to get somewhere, so I kind of forgot about it until earlier this week I was on Facebook, and I noticed that other people had seen this, too, and had posted videos and photos, like you said. And that's when I saw actually what it was.
NINA MOINI: So what was it?
DAN KRAKER: Well, it was actually a satellite that was burning up as it came back to Earth. Specifically, it was [? Space ?] Link satellite number 3322. So [? Space ?] Link is the internet service provider company that's part of Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Yeah. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is fascinating. I wanted to learn more about this. So I reached out to Bob King. He's a well-known amateur astronomer here in Duluth. He goes by Astro Bob. And Bob told me there are now about 9,000 or more of these satellites up in near-earth orbit. And it's not just Starlink. So China is launching a lot of these satellites. Amazon's getting into it, too.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, Amazon's launched a new satellite internet venture dubbed Leo. They have plans to launch more than 3,000 satellites. So there are more of these things getting launched into space all the time. In fact, just this week, SpaceX launched another 27 of these satellites. They actually load them up into a rocket and then deploy them up in space. And King says that these satellites only have about a five year-life span.
BOB KING: So there's so many up there that they're actually coming down at the rate of about two per day.
DAN KRAKER: That's amazing.
BOB KING: It is. And that rate is increasing. Obviously, the more you have up there, the more that are going to come down.
DAN KRAKER: And Nina King told me that the reason it looked bright green when I saw it is because actually of the copper that's in the electronics in the satellite, as that comes back through the atmosphere, it kind of burns up and blows. That glows that bright green color in the sky.
NINA MOINI: Wow. So these are part of the a larger issue, Dan, that experts called space debris or space junk. What are you learning about that?
DAN KRAKER: Well, I learned that there's a lot of it. I talked to a space junk expert named John Crassidis at the University of Buffalo in New York. He says they're currently tracking over 40,000 objects that are a softball size or bigger. But, Nina, he says the bigger concern actually is all the smaller stuff that's flying around. He estimates that there are 1.4 million pieces of space junk that are pretty small, between 1 and 10 centimeters.
NINA MOINI: So why is the smaller stuff of bigger concern?
DAN KRAKER: Because there's so much of it, and it's flying around at these incredibly fast speeds. So this stuff has to travel-- I learned this-- at least 17,500 miles per hour to stay in orbit.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DAN KRAKER: So any slower than that, it would get pulled back to Earth by gravity. So that means something as small as a Cheerio can cause a lot of damage when it hits active satellites or spacecraft. And in fact, Nina, just this last month, there were three Chinese astronauts who had to extend their stay at China's Space Station by more than a week because of space debris that hit and damaged their spacecraft.
And Crassidis also told me about something known as the Kessler syndrome. So bear with me. So this is an idea posited by a scientist that, as more and more of this debris gets up into space, there's going to be more and more collisions, which then creates more debris. And the idea is that this could lead to this kind of exponential increase in junk in space, to the point where it might not be worth it to send satellites up into space if they're just going to get hit and damaged.
NINA MOINI: Sure.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah. And Crassidis told me this is actually a real worry of his that if we don't get a handle on this soon, he worries that in the next 50 years or so, that we might not be able to put more satellites up there, that we might not even be able to send astronauts up to Mars or the moon because of the risk of traveling through this debris field.
NINA MOINI: Wow. I had no idea that they thought--
DAN KRAKER: I know.
NINA MOINI: --that was going to be that serious. So is it a danger to us here on Earth?
DAN KRAKER: Well, these satellites are made of aluminum, and they're designed to disintegrate when they fall back into the atmosphere, like the one I saw. But on rare occasions, pieces of space junk have fallen to the ground. Last year, a battery from the International Space Station actually crashed through the roof of a Florida home.
So it happens. But Crassidis told me that we have a much better chance of getting struck by lightning, so not to change your daily plans. He says the more immediate concern actually is for anyone who loves to observe the night sky.
NINA MOINI: And what does he mean by that?
DAN KRAKER: Well, there are now so many of these satellites orbiting around the Earth, so many of these other pieces of space junk, that it's really changed the experience for stargazers, people who love to capture the night sky with through telescopes or cameras. So here's Bob King again, the astronomer in Duluth. He calls it the mechanized sky.
BOB KING: Because before, when I was growing up could go out and satellites were really thrilling to see because there were so few of them, and it was just wonderful to see a human-made object orbiting the Earth.
But now you go out, and they are so commonplace they distract from the experience of being under the stars sometimes. You can't not see a satellite anymore. Yes, there's potential for all these exciting displays, but you're paying for it at the same time by losing some of the pristine nature, what the sky used to be before it became so full of machines.
NINA MOINI: This is fascinating, Dan. I really had no idea. For people, though, who do want to stargaze, they're not interested in seeing all the space junk, I understand this is actually going to be a big weekend.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, that's right. So King says this weekend will be the best meteor shower of the year. He says the Geminid meteor shower, it's going to peak beginning Saturday night around 9 o'clock, and it's going to last through early Sunday morning. Nina, it's going to be super cold, but hopefully, that will mean some clear skies for some amazing stargazing this weekend.
NINA MOINI: Do you stargaze, Dan? It feels like Northern Minnesota seems like the place to stargaze. I don't know.
DAN KRAKER: So I can't identify much beyond the Big Dipper or Orion's belt, but I do love to see the Northern Lights. I love to soak up the stars, just to go out away from the light pollution and just soak up the vastness of the universe.
But you're right, Nina. Northern Minnesota is actually a really great place for this. In fact, the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park, they've both been designated, actually, as dark sky sanctuaries. Yeah. And this weekend, Cook County up the North Shore, they're actually going to be hosting a dark sky festival with presentations and meteor viewing.
NINA MOINI: Wonderful. Thanks so much, Dan. Appreciate your time.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, you're welcome.
NINA MOINI: That's MPR News Duluth Bureau reporter Dan Kraker. By the way, you can see a video of the space junk at mprnews.org.
DAN KRAKER: Hey it's good to be with you, Nina.
NINA MOINI: So this sounds like it was kind of cool to see. Did you see it? How did you first learn about this?
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, I actually did see it.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DAN KRAKER: And it was pretty lucky. I was just walking out my door Saturday night. It was just after 6 o'clock. And I happened to look out over Lake Superior, right when this bright, sparkling, white kind of ball was streaking across the sky. It had this real bright green color to it. And it wasn't like a shooting star where it's kind of there, and it's gone in a split second. This lasted for 10 seconds as it kind of just moved slowly across the sky until it eventually disappeared.
It was wild, Nina. But I was in a hurry to get somewhere, so I kind of forgot about it until earlier this week I was on Facebook, and I noticed that other people had seen this, too, and had posted videos and photos, like you said. And that's when I saw actually what it was.
NINA MOINI: So what was it?
DAN KRAKER: Well, it was actually a satellite that was burning up as it came back to Earth. Specifically, it was [? Space ?] Link satellite number 3322. So [? Space ?] Link is the internet service provider company that's part of Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Yeah. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is fascinating. I wanted to learn more about this. So I reached out to Bob King. He's a well-known amateur astronomer here in Duluth. He goes by Astro Bob. And Bob told me there are now about 9,000 or more of these satellites up in near-earth orbit. And it's not just Starlink. So China is launching a lot of these satellites. Amazon's getting into it, too.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, Amazon's launched a new satellite internet venture dubbed Leo. They have plans to launch more than 3,000 satellites. So there are more of these things getting launched into space all the time. In fact, just this week, SpaceX launched another 27 of these satellites. They actually load them up into a rocket and then deploy them up in space. And King says that these satellites only have about a five year-life span.
BOB KING: So there's so many up there that they're actually coming down at the rate of about two per day.
DAN KRAKER: That's amazing.
BOB KING: It is. And that rate is increasing. Obviously, the more you have up there, the more that are going to come down.
DAN KRAKER: And Nina King told me that the reason it looked bright green when I saw it is because actually of the copper that's in the electronics in the satellite, as that comes back through the atmosphere, it kind of burns up and blows. That glows that bright green color in the sky.
NINA MOINI: Wow. So these are part of the a larger issue, Dan, that experts called space debris or space junk. What are you learning about that?
DAN KRAKER: Well, I learned that there's a lot of it. I talked to a space junk expert named John Crassidis at the University of Buffalo in New York. He says they're currently tracking over 40,000 objects that are a softball size or bigger. But, Nina, he says the bigger concern actually is all the smaller stuff that's flying around. He estimates that there are 1.4 million pieces of space junk that are pretty small, between 1 and 10 centimeters.
NINA MOINI: So why is the smaller stuff of bigger concern?
DAN KRAKER: Because there's so much of it, and it's flying around at these incredibly fast speeds. So this stuff has to travel-- I learned this-- at least 17,500 miles per hour to stay in orbit.
NINA MOINI: Wow.
DAN KRAKER: So any slower than that, it would get pulled back to Earth by gravity. So that means something as small as a Cheerio can cause a lot of damage when it hits active satellites or spacecraft. And in fact, Nina, just this last month, there were three Chinese astronauts who had to extend their stay at China's Space Station by more than a week because of space debris that hit and damaged their spacecraft.
And Crassidis also told me about something known as the Kessler syndrome. So bear with me. So this is an idea posited by a scientist that, as more and more of this debris gets up into space, there's going to be more and more collisions, which then creates more debris. And the idea is that this could lead to this kind of exponential increase in junk in space, to the point where it might not be worth it to send satellites up into space if they're just going to get hit and damaged.
NINA MOINI: Sure.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah. And Crassidis told me this is actually a real worry of his that if we don't get a handle on this soon, he worries that in the next 50 years or so, that we might not be able to put more satellites up there, that we might not even be able to send astronauts up to Mars or the moon because of the risk of traveling through this debris field.
NINA MOINI: Wow. I had no idea that they thought--
DAN KRAKER: I know.
NINA MOINI: --that was going to be that serious. So is it a danger to us here on Earth?
DAN KRAKER: Well, these satellites are made of aluminum, and they're designed to disintegrate when they fall back into the atmosphere, like the one I saw. But on rare occasions, pieces of space junk have fallen to the ground. Last year, a battery from the International Space Station actually crashed through the roof of a Florida home.
So it happens. But Crassidis told me that we have a much better chance of getting struck by lightning, so not to change your daily plans. He says the more immediate concern actually is for anyone who loves to observe the night sky.
NINA MOINI: And what does he mean by that?
DAN KRAKER: Well, there are now so many of these satellites orbiting around the Earth, so many of these other pieces of space junk, that it's really changed the experience for stargazers, people who love to capture the night sky with through telescopes or cameras. So here's Bob King again, the astronomer in Duluth. He calls it the mechanized sky.
BOB KING: Because before, when I was growing up could go out and satellites were really thrilling to see because there were so few of them, and it was just wonderful to see a human-made object orbiting the Earth.
But now you go out, and they are so commonplace they distract from the experience of being under the stars sometimes. You can't not see a satellite anymore. Yes, there's potential for all these exciting displays, but you're paying for it at the same time by losing some of the pristine nature, what the sky used to be before it became so full of machines.
NINA MOINI: This is fascinating, Dan. I really had no idea. For people, though, who do want to stargaze, they're not interested in seeing all the space junk, I understand this is actually going to be a big weekend.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, that's right. So King says this weekend will be the best meteor shower of the year. He says the Geminid meteor shower, it's going to peak beginning Saturday night around 9 o'clock, and it's going to last through early Sunday morning. Nina, it's going to be super cold, but hopefully, that will mean some clear skies for some amazing stargazing this weekend.
NINA MOINI: Do you stargaze, Dan? It feels like Northern Minnesota seems like the place to stargaze. I don't know.
DAN KRAKER: So I can't identify much beyond the Big Dipper or Orion's belt, but I do love to see the Northern Lights. I love to soak up the stars, just to go out away from the light pollution and just soak up the vastness of the universe.
But you're right, Nina. Northern Minnesota is actually a really great place for this. In fact, the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park, they've both been designated, actually, as dark sky sanctuaries. Yeah. And this weekend, Cook County up the North Shore, they're actually going to be hosting a dark sky festival with presentations and meteor viewing.
NINA MOINI: Wonderful. Thanks so much, Dan. Appreciate your time.
DAN KRAKER: Yeah, you're welcome.
NINA MOINI: That's MPR News Duluth Bureau reporter Dan Kraker. By the way, you can see a video of the space junk at mprnews.org.
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