Friday the 13th Space Junk Burns Up Above Sri Lanka

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's a piece of space junk -- WT1190F -- and it collided with Earth on Friday, the 13th.

WT1190F entered the atmosphere south of Sri Lanka around 11:49 a.m. local time (10:19 p.m. PST), but was not visible to local residents because of overcast skies.

However, the fireball was seen by U.S. and German astronomers aboard a Gulfstream 450 business jet specifically chartered for the event.

WT1190F was orbiting beyond the moon, and according to a report in the science journal Nature, was "glimpsed by a telescope in early October."

Scientists say it is three to six feet long and man-made.

As for exactly where it came from, there is speculation it could be some 50-year old spent rocket, or perhaps a piece of "paneling shed by a recent moon mission." Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard called it "a lost piece of space history that's come back to haunt us."

According to NASA there are more than half a million pieces of debris orbiting Earth at speeds up to 17,500 mph.