MIDLAND, Texas — West Texas skies lit up shortly soon after 2 a.m. as a unusual object streaked across the sky.

At first, it appeared to be a meteor breaking up in the earth’s environment. But this object was relocating as well slow and failed to behave like a common meteor.

On even further investigation, this item was not a space rock, but instead something designed by people.

Dr. Marco Langbroek, a Dutch archaeologist who researches asteroids and satellite behaviors, tweeted that this was not a meteor, but a Russian rocket phase that was released in 2019.

In contrast to SpaceX, most rocket start operators do not get better the initially stage of their rocket right after start. 

This suggests that soon after sending their 2nd stage and payload (satellite) into orbit, the very first phase is remaining to orbit the Earth until eventually finally slowing down, re-moving into the environment, and burning up.

This rocket, referred to as 2019-079C, is component of the Russian Soyuz start process and launched at the finish of November 2019, sending a military services satellite called Kosmos 2542 into orbit.

According to the Combined Room Operations Centre, the Russian initially phase rocket booster was scheduled for re-entry at 2:02 a.m.CDT Saturday.

This strains up with the flood of films despatched to NewsWest 9 soon after 2:02 a.m., all but confirming this was not a meteor.