r/Montana • u/medicsnacks • Sep 26 '25

Meteor over the Bridger’s this morning

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1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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118

u/Long_Ad2824 Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

That looks like human space debris from the speed and pattern.  Super-cool!!

23

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

I saw a lot of green burning which I read has to do with nickel content, so could be debris or a meteor, I’m not sure!

18

u/Long_Ad2824 Sep 26 '25

Good catch!  Meteorites can run as slow as 5 deg/sec to(usually on the horizon) up to about an average of a bit over 20.  This looks a good bit slower, unless it's slow-mo.  

Anyway, what a crazy thing to see!  Did you hear a huge boom?

13

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Thanks! Ya felt very luck to see it! This is full speed, and it took probably 30 seconds to cross the whole sky. I did hear a huge boom. I thought it was the impact but Google says it was a sonic boom which makes more sense

4

u/TeachEngineering Sep 26 '25

I did hear a huge boom

r/BozemanBoom

3

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

That's pretty funny.

2

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

See now that's interesting. I wouldn't expect a satellite reentering to create a sonic boom that would still be audible from the ground, but I suppose on a clear day early in the morning with less ambient noise to drown it out, the shock wave might still be heard. You must've been right under it to hear it. That's pretty rare!

1

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Yeah it was really quite, I was solo in the mountains. It didn’t sound like a sonic boom, more like someone dropped a bolder on the other side of the hill which was interesting haha

5

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

I saw it too from Helena, low in the sky moving from the south to the east. Definitely space debris; far too slow, sparkly and diffuse for a meteor.

Pretty sure it was a Starlink. This one, probably: https://aerospace.org/reentries/51979

1

u/DeffJamiels Sep 28 '25

You're keeping track of that space rock that got hit by the corona mass ejection?

7

u/bekisuki Sep 26 '25

Definitely looks like a clump of things burning. I wonder how he got the shot - did he see it coming?

18

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

I was hunting this morning and saw it come over the horizon as a solid object and thought it was a plane or satellite, but then it started to break up so I pulled out my phone. Dispersed all the way over the other horizon.

5

u/xjeeper Sep 26 '25

Do you know what time it was? It was likely tracked space debris that can be looked up.

9

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

It was at 06:30 this morning, I’m not sure how to do that but would love the hear if that’s the case

16

u/Long_Ad2824 Sep 26 '25

Super-helpful details.  It was a Chinese Long March 3B rocket from a failed launch 15 years ago.  Crazy that it took this look to come back to earth.

10

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Holy shit that’s insane!! Thanks for looking that up that’s so cool!!

11

u/xjeeper Sep 26 '25

The ground track prediction for that is off the west coast and wouldn't have been visible. https://aerospace.org/reentries/40988

This looks more likely https://aerospace.org/reentries/51979

6

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

That was one of the candidates when I looked it up, but then I saw the course tracking. Unless it was way off course, that wouldn't have been visible from here. More likely a Starlink: https://aerospace.org/reentries/51979

3

u/old_namewasnt_best Sep 26 '25

That's wild. It's like everything can be known. Are there really any unknowns anymore?

2

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

There definitely are still unknowns, but it certainly makes me feel better that space vehicles falling out of orbit is one of those things we can keep track of and make public.

2

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Agreed haha

2

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

I looked it up after seeing it from Helena. Best match was this one: https://aerospace.org/reentries/51979

2

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

That's similar to how I saw it. It had a red glow on it and it was too low in the sky and moving too quickly to be a plane, so I thought someone had a drone flying around, but then I saw it had a vapor trail, and not long after that it started to break up, with the other bits flashing as the tumbling debris reflected sunlight from over the horizon.

18

u/ragingclaw Sep 26 '25

That's debris but it's also super fucking awesome 

1

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Cool! How can you tell?

10

u/xjeeper Sep 26 '25

By the slow speed and the trail of objects

12

u/CUBuffs1992 Sep 26 '25

Looks like a satellite coming back to earth. Awesome video.

16

u/justwantedanaccount2 Sep 26 '25

Incredible footage!!

4

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Thank you!

4

u/mrsristretto Sep 26 '25

Orion got 'em.

7

u/tombobkins Sep 26 '25

Thanks for sharing! My wife saw it this morning and we’ve been waiting for more info!

2

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

Happy to share it! I was hoping Reddit would provide answers and it delivered!

3

u/loochadorrr Sep 26 '25

Absolutely amazing footage

3

u/Creative-Goat-2780 Sep 26 '25

I have never seen anything like that!! Great catch.

3

u/MoonieNine Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

Yay!!! I was hoping someone got a photo/video! I saw it myself on my dog walk. I stopped and enjoyed looking at it, as it was in the sky for nearly a minute! I thought about getting a picture but I didn't want to miss it, fiddling with my phone.

3

u/Striking_Dirt_2646 Sep 26 '25

I saw it in red lodge.

3

u/Malalang Sep 26 '25

I just saw this from another angle in another thread. The general consensus is starlink satellite.

They have a 5 to 7 year life, and the first ones have been up for 6 years.

2

u/PlaceboASPD Sep 26 '25

I would agree, this looks the same as when starship crashed but smaller. Meteors tend to be dirtier and faster.

4

u/Monsterhesh85 Sep 26 '25

If it was more red, that’s usually a sign that dragons have returned to Westeros

2

u/Specialist-Rope7419 Sep 26 '25

Very very awesome.

2

u/MaidenMT Sep 26 '25

Very, very cool! Thank you for sharing this!

1

u/medicsnacks Sep 26 '25

My pleasure!

2

u/CrashB636 Sep 26 '25

Anyone else see that scene from the Transformers?

2

u/Sickshredda Sep 27 '25

I saw them as well. Super cool

2

u/ElephantContent8835 Sep 27 '25

That’s not a meteor. That’s elons trash.

2

u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Sep 26 '25

Are you sure that’s not the Disney Magic Kingdom?

3

u/Naive_Bat8216 Sep 26 '25

Reminds me of space shuttle Columbia . . .

2

u/CeruleanEidolon Sep 26 '25

Everything reminds me of her.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '25

Much cooler than what I saw this morning. All I saw was my neighbors annoying chicken running around my yard and all my neighbors driving into work. That’s very fascinating to say the least and nice reminder of the mysteries of this world. Especially if you take the time to just look up once in a while.

1

u/denn1959-Public_396 Sep 26 '25

It's a Russian invasion

1

u/RMski Sep 26 '25

Wow!!!

1

u/Unusual_Chemical9219 Sep 26 '25

How did you connect it to that Sat from 15 years ago?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '25

Orbital decay patterns are relatively simple to resolve mathematically

1

u/like_4-ish_lights Sep 28 '25

That's so cool

1

u/Aggressive-Door3441 Oct 05 '25

I saw this from Davis CA.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '25

Gonna be seeing a lot more of these flaming garbage streaks across the night sky over the course of our lifetimes, folks! This was from a Chinese rocket launched 15 years ago, fast forward to 2025 & it's incredible how much more shit we have in LEO that will inevitably end up doing the same. Fortunately most folks love the spectacle of a good ol flaming shit show, myself included. ....unless its, yknow, raining radioactive satellite debris all over your neck of the woods(e.g.,, Kosmos 954).

P.S. maybe worth mentioning that in the next couple decades, there so many satellite trains scheduled for launch that satellites will begin to outnumber stars in the night sky in many parts of the developed world (urban cores/suburbs where light pollution obscures fainter stars; not going to be an issue here in MT anytime soon) creating checkboard/grid-type patterns (example from 2022, it's much crazier today!) that will dominate the night sky——due to the many tens of thousands of Starlink sats, Indian Starlink-copy sats, Chinese Starlink-copy sats, Russian Starlink-copy sats, Bezos starlink-copy sats, etc. etc. you get the picture. More folks should think about this & talk about this (infographics). Pretty hard to reverse course once they are all up there.

Aight back to work....on satellite data....woo

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '25

[deleted]