It came from outer space: Crashing satellite lights up northern Illinois skies

The night started normal for Nannette Englehardt and her family in Yorkville before a bright object streaked across the dark sky.

“We were letting the dog out in the backyard, and all of a sudden my son started going berserk,” Englehardt said. “I’ve seen a meteorite before, but this was different. It wasn’t like a fireball – the lights moved slower across the sky. It was a huge object. It was a totally surreal experience.”

Englehardt said that as she filmed the streaking objects about 9 p.m. Tuesday with her phone, her imagination began running wild. She said her family did not know exactly what to make of the sighting, they just knew it must be incredibly rare.

Her first thought was that it could be a government or military plane being escorted by fighter jets. However, she thought the flight pattern seemed a bit odd for that to be the case. Her son thought the object could have been a meteorite or a satellite breaking up while entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Since posting a video, I know a lot of people have been thinking it could be space debris or one of the Starlink satellites being decommissioned,” Englehardt said. “I went down a rabbit hole researching how many satellites are being decommissioned, how they are built to burn up in the atmosphere and how big they are.”

Englehardt said all she could say for certain was that it was a tremendous experience to witness, and she was lucky to whip out her phone just in time.

Mark Frank, chair of the Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, said after having an initial hunch about the sighting, he checked the online resources at NASA and SpaceX.

Frank said the online tracking information showed that Starlink satellite 5693 entered over Wisconsin before traveling over northern Illinois on its descending path as it was breaking up in the atmosphere.

“Any of the low Earth-orbit satellites slowly get pulled back to Earth by the Earth’s gravitational pull before burning up in the upper atmosphere,” Frank said. “Most of the small satellites do not have a heat shield or anything protective like that, so when they degrade and get pulled into the atmosphere, they almost all break up and disintegrate.”

Frank said the average lifespan of a Starlink satellite is five years or fewer before burning up in the atmosphere. He said that with the large number of satellites launched by private companies, the U.S. and China, witnessing them disintegrate in a streaking flash of light could become a more common occurrence.

He said because most burn up and disintegrate in the upper atmosphere, the public has little to fear about their safety. However, Frank said sometimes larger space-traveling objects, such as a recent SpaceX rocket that had a separated part actually fall all the way to Earth, can be a little more unpredictable.

He said for the average stargazer, sometimes you can tell what the object is in the night sky with your naked eye.

“Meteorites can sometimes travel faster because of the velocities they have when they’re coming into the atmosphere,” Frank said. “There are different types of meteorites, and some can be the same size as the Starlink satellite. They generally break up, but ones that are iron meteorites are pretty hefty and don’t break up as often.”

The best thing someone can do if they are curious about witnessing something in the night sky is check the online resources at NASA and SpaceX. Frank said the satellite schedules are frequently posted, and you can check what their expected flight path is on their way to disintegration.

But a little star-crossed timing can’t hurt either.

“I’m still baffled,” Englehardt said. “I can’t believe we just happened to step outside at the right time.”