Bright Star Causes UFO Scare Over Simi Valley

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 (KNN) — “Ring App” users caused a stir on social media Thursday evening with multiple users reporting a “colorful orb” possible UFO sighting over Simi-Valley.

KNN captured a video of what appeared to be a bright, flickering star as seen from North Hollywood. At heading 220 low on the horizon, the star was the brightest object in the sky.

Stargazing apps confirmed the star to be the massive ruby red “Antares” which is part of the zodiacal constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. The star could be seen flickering bright red, green, and blue and was the brightest object in that part of the sky. KNN footage was captured in the area of Sherman Way and Woodman around 8.30 p.m. Thursday.

“Today, we know that Antares is a massive star – a red supergiant – in the final stages of its life.”

“The M1 designation means that Antares is reddish in color and much cooler than many other stars. Its surface temperature is about 6,100 degrees F (3,400 degrees C). That’s in contrast to our sun’s surface temperature of about 10,000 degrees F (5,500 degrees C).

So, Antares is relatively cool, and its surface temperature is relatively low. Yet the star appears very bright to us. That’s because Antares is a truly enormous star. Its surface area – the surface from which light can escape this star – is gigantic. As an illustration, if you could place our sun and Antares side by side, you’d find Antares more than 10,000 times brighter than our sun. Plus, it is about 700 times the sun’s diameter!

And that’s just in visible light. In addition, when you consider all the various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, Antares pumps out about 75,900 times the energy of our sun.” -earthsky.org

More information found here at EarthSky.org.

Zak Holman, Video Journalist / KNN