A Sault Ste. Marie man who has spent years photographing the night sky says the video he captured this week of an object apparently burning up in the atmosphere is something he has never witnessed before.
Jeff Dixon is a local visual artist known for his photographs of the Aurora Borealis, Milky Way and other nighttime phenomenon. He was in Lake Superior Provincial Park Wednesday night photographing the Milky Way galaxy when he saw a brilliant, slow-moving flash of light in the sky.
"I was waiting for an exposure and I looked over and saw something bright," Dixon said. "I thought it was a satellite flair or a plane, but it kept getting brighter."
As Dixon began recording with his phone, the object began to break up, moving from the northwest to the east in the sky.
"It kind of fizzled out and they got lighter as they streaked across the sky. It was pretty cool," he said.
Dixon posted the video to his Facebook page, where it has so far received over 700 likes and shares.
A webcam for SooToday, an affiliate of BradfordToday and InnisfilToday, set up on Lake Superior also captured the same object in the sky at about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. That timing coincides with a reentry of a SpaceX payload from a StarLink satellite launch, but the company has yet to confirm.
SooToday is attempting to confirm with government agencies what exactly was photographed in the night sky and will update this story once confirmation is received.
A recent report by The Canadian Press said there are "thousands of Starlink satellites in orbit that are expected to re-enter Earth in batches over the next few years."
"It was probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing," sad Dixon, before adding: "Well maybe not, with how much junk is going up there."
