A brilliant fireball lit up the night sky over some southern states in the United States this weekend, but that was no meteor. It was Chinese space junk.

The fireball, which streaked over parts of Missisippi, Arkansa and Missouri on Saturday night (Dec. 21), was the death knell of a defunct Chinese commercial Earth imaging satellite called Superview 1-02 (or GaoJing 1-02) as it burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. Video of the Chinese space junk burning up shows it as several streaks of objects flaring up in the night sky.

“The commercial imaging satellite 高景一号02星 (GaoJing 1-02, Superview 1-02), operated by Beijing-based SpaceView (北京航天世景信息技术有限公司) reentered above New Orleans at 0408 UTC Dec 22 (1008 pm CST Dec 21) heading northbound towards MS, AR, MO and was widely observed,” wrote Jonathan McDowell, an astrosphycist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks satellite launches and reentries, in a post on X. He also shared the apparent track of the space debris.