Former Soviet satellite likely caused Sunday night light show, official says

Streaming lights seen in the night sky above Hawaii on Sunday were likely caused by a surveillance satellite disintegrating as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, an official says.

The Department of Defense’s Joint Space Operations Center said the object was most likely the Cosmos 1315 payload launched by the Soviet Union in 1981, according to Gene Stansbery, program manager of NASA’s orbital debris program.

A webcam image from Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea captured the reentry event at 11:03 p.m.

NASA said Cosmos 1315 was an “electronic and signals intelligence” satellite launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

Stansbery said in an email that a large satellite or rocket body reenters the atmosphere on average once a week.