Meteor in sky lights up social media in California, other states

LAS VEGAS (WPVI) -- Social media is lighting up with reports from Nevada, Utah and California of a small fireball streaking across the sky.

Officials from Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada tell KTNV-TV that the light seen Wednesday night was a meteor breaking up.

Dr. Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, tells KABC-TV it may have been a meteor from the Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower, which is peaking on Wednesday night.

But the official Twitter account of the National Weather Service out of Salt Lake City stated that the light was caused by "space junk."

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said observations from Utah indicated it was part of a Chinese rocket reentering the atmosphere.

McDowell later said multiple agencies confirmed the light was caused by the Chang Zheng 7 rocket.

People were tweeting photos and videos of the small fiery dot in the sky from northern and southern California as well as Nevada and Utah.

----

The Associated Press contributed to this report.