{"id":129354,"date":"2020-10-26T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T03:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=129354"},"modified":"2020-10-29T08:43:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T18:43:59","slug":"ufo-spotted-over-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/10\/26\/ufo-spotted-over-hawaii\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr title=\"unidentified flying object\">UFO<\/abbr> spotted over Hawai\u02bbi likely spent rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap-post\"><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe  id=\"_ytid_50920\"  width=\"620\" height=\"349\"  data-origwidth=\"620\" data-origheight=\"349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W1VWNGja-UU?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu&rel=0&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"UFO spotted over Hawai\u02bbi likely spent rocket\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure>Video of rocket body fragments captured over Haleakal\u0101 by an <abbr>AMOS<\/abbr> system camera. Courtesy: <abbr>AMOS<\/abbr> Haleakal\u0101<\/div>\n<p>Thousands were mesmerized by a mysterious flurry of lights that appeared to float across <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\u2019s\">Â鶹´«Ã½\u2019s<\/span> evening sky on Saturday, October 24. Photos and videos of the string of lights flooded social media, leaving many to believe the sighting could be anything from a spaceship carrying extra terrestrials to a meteor shower.<\/p>\n<p>University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ifa.hawaii.edu\/\">Institute for Astronomy<\/a> Professor <strong>Richard Wainscoat<\/strong> believes onlookers witnessed the reentry of a spent rocket booster used to launch Venezualan satellite, Venesat-1, back in 2008. The used rocket has been circling Earth since the launch, slowly losing altitude due to friction with the tenuous atmosphere in low-Earth orbit. On Saturday, the booster made its final orbits.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_129331\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-129331\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/manoa-ifa-mysterious-lights-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"debris reentering Earth\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-129331\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/manoa-ifa-mysterious-lights-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/manoa-ifa-mysterious-lights-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/manoa-ifa-mysterious-lights.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-129331\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reentry captured by ATLAS, an asteroid impact early warning system on Haleakal\u0101. (Photo credit: ATLAS\/Larry Denneau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wainscoat works with the Pan-<abbr>STARRS<\/abbr> telescope on Haleakal&#257;, and said <a href=\"https:\/\/aerospace.org\/reentries\/cz-3b-rocket-body-id-33415\">the reentry was predicted<\/a> to occur over the Atlantic Ocean at 7:24 p.m. <abbr title=\"Hawaii standard time\">HST<\/abbr> on October 24. He added that the object stayed in orbit a little longer than expected, and finally burned up in the atmosphere over <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, an occurrence that does not happen very often.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Seeing a reentry is relatively rare for a specific location like <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, since we can only see the reentry if it occurs relatively close to us,&rdquo; Wainscoat explained. Reentries are a common occurrence, with typically one to two per week taking place somewhere around the Earth. According to Wainscoat, although it\u2019s possible for large solid pieces to survive reentry, most of the object will burn up, and any surviving debris will usually fall in the ocean or in uninhabited locations.<\/p>\n<p>The reentry was also spotted by many of the sky-monitoring cameras at the Maunakea and Haleakal&#257; observatories. The <span aria-label=\"CanadaFranceHawaii\">Canada-France-Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Telescope cloud camera on Maunakea captured an image of the streaking debris, as did the all-sky monitor on the ATLAS telescope on Haleakal&#257;. AMOS systems on Haleakal\u0101 and Maunakea captured the rocket re-entry, as well. The observations by AMOS are used for observations and analysis of meteors and fireballs to help astronomers understand the structure of the solar system.\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More news from the Institute for Astronomy:\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/10\/27\/water-moon-sunlit-surface\/\">Water across Moon\u2019s sunlit surface discovered by <abbr>UH<\/abbr> scientists<\/a>, October 27, 2020<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/10\/26\/new-massive-asteroid-findings\/\">Massive asteroid subject of new findings<\/a>, October 26, 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tracking asteroids<\/h2>\n<p>Telescopes on Haleakal&#257; and Maunakea also play a critical role in tracking potentially hazardous asteroids and assist with rapid follow-up observations to verify an asteroid\u2019s orbit and if it poses any threat to Earth. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_129428\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-129428\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/system-astronomy-amos-debris.jpg\" alt=\"Disintegrating rocket booster debris\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-129428\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/system-astronomy-amos-debris.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/system-astronomy-amos-debris-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/system-astronomy-amos-debris-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-129428\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AMOS observatory on Haleakal\u0101 spotted disintegrating debris of the rocket booster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Richard Wainscoat explains a mysterious sighting in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> skies that captivated thousands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[34,292,9],"class_list":["post-129354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-astronomy","tag-imiloa-astronomy-center","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129354"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129660,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129354\/revisions\/129660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}