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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Folks out celebrating Saint Patrick's Day or enjoying the start to their weekend in Northern California got a cosmic show Friday night when streaks of light soared across the sky.

Viewers from all across the region sent us photos and videos all asking ‘what is this?’ ABC10 looked into it.

Jonathan McDowell is an Astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and says he is at least 99.9% sure this was space junk from a 2009 launch of ICS-EF.

ICS-EF, also knows as the Inter-orbit Communication System-Exposed Facility, is a Japanese intercommunications network between Kibo and the Tsukuba Space Center, according to Robert Lunsford from the American Meteor Society.

“This was pieces of a package that was jettisoned from a space station about 3 years ago,” said McDowell. “It was moving at about 17,000 mph… What you're seeing is it broken into pieces about 40 miles up [in the sky].”

This is ICS-EF, a Japanese communications package for sending data between the ISS Kibo module and Mission Control Tsukuba via the Kodama data relay satellite. It was launched to the ISS on the Space Shuttle in 2009 and had a mass of 310 kg. pic.twitter.com/ygzHdmfQc0

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) March 18, 2023

This communications box has been on the Space Force and astrophysicists radars for quite some time, but McDowell says no warnings were issued due to the guessing nature of where it would come in.

"We knew that this thing was going to reenter sometime this weekend, but we didn't know where," said McDowell. "If you predict Australia and it comes down in California, you look pretty silly. So, you just can't predict these uncontrolled reentries well enough to make useful warnings for people."

Trajectory tracking expected one of the possible reentry spots to be over Chico. The streaks were seen around 9:30 p.m. from the Bay Area up to Shingle Springs, according to our viewers.

McDowell says it was visible from so far away because of how high in the sky it was. For reference, an airplane usually flies between 6 and 8 miles off the ground while this was visible from about 40 miles up.

He says this isn't rare and happens a lot more than people realize.

"The Space Force is tracking 20,000 objects orbiting the Earth like that," said McDowell. "We get reentries like this every week, somewhere in the world."

So will it hit the ground? Hurt anyone? Maybe, but not likely, according to McDowell.

“It will probably melt entirely, but a few bits could reach the ground in Yosemite,” he said. "There are many other things you should lose sleep over before you start worrying about getting hit by space debris."

The Space Force and NASA could not immediately be reached by ABC10 Saturday.

Send us your photos and videos by using our free ABC10 app or emailing us as desk@abc10.com.

Streaks of light in Northern California sky March 17, 2023

From more professional sports action to quilt and landscaping festivals, here are some events happening across the greater Sacramento area this weekend.

This weekend should be a good one for getting outdoors. Watch the forecast below.

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Here are some things to do.

Sacramento Kings Game

The Sacramento Kings host the Phoenix at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center on Friday and then the Utah Jazz on Saturday. Learn more here.

Quilt, Craft and Sewing Festival

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The Quilt, Craft and Sewing Festival continues at Cal Expo through Saturday. Learn more here.

Sacramento Republic FC

The Sacramento Republic FC take on San Diego Loyal at Heart Health Park on Saturday at 7 p.m. Learn more here.

Foothill Dog Rescue Anniversary Party

The Foothill Dog Rescue of the Sierras is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a pancake breakfast, gift basket raffle and giveaway Saturday starting at 9 a.m. in Single Springs. Learn more here.

Folsom Landscape Fest

A free landscape festival takes place in Folsom Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mangini Ranch Elementary School. Learn more here.

Modesto Marathon

The Modesto Marathon takes place Sunday and also includes a half marathon, 10K and 5K. Learn more here.

Black Violin

The music duo Black Violin, which mixes classical music with hip hop, performs at the Crest Theatre Friday. Learn more here.

Haunted Tavern

A pop-up Haunted Tavern “immersive cocktail experience” takes place Friday and Saturday at The Rink Studios on 1031 Del Paso Blv. in Sacramento. Learn more here.

Is there another event we should include? Email us at web@kcra.com.

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AS DOMANTAS SABONIS and Justin Holiday flew to Sacramento last February -- hours after being traded from the Indiana Pacers to the Kings in a blockbuster deal for Tyrese Haliburton -- they decided to scan social media for reaction to the trade.

"The comments," Sabonis says, laughing, "were horrible."

Haliburton was beloved in Sacramento -- a rare lottery win for a team that had 16 lottery chances in 16 years amid one of the longest losing runs in U.S. pro sports history.

"Oh my god, we are gonna get booed!" Sabonis recalls exclaiming.

"Dude," Holiday remembers saying, "they are gonna boo the crap out of us!"

The comments stung because the trade had excited Sabonis -- even though it marked the third major trade of his young career. Sabonis' father, legendary center Arvydas Sabonis, who played for the Portland Trail Blazers during the Kings' early-2000s glory days, told his son about the atmosphere he could expect if the team turned around.

"He was saying, the noise level, the intensity -- it was just different," Sabonis says. Sabonis' agent, Greg Lawrence, told him that 15-plus years ago, the Kings were a prime destination -- and the Golden State Warriors, their Northern California rivals, the dead zone.

"That's how things can switch," Sabonis says. "As a competitor, there's nothing I like more than a challenge -- to help change the direction of a franchise. All of that was very exciting. It added spice to my career."

The turnaround has happened, faster and more dramatically than anyone expected. Behind Sabonis and De'Aaron Fox -- both All-Stars -- the Kings are 43-28 and No. 3 in the West. They have clinched their first winning season since 2005-06, and are days from snagging their first playoff spot since that season -- and ending the longest playoff drought in NBA history. As the West wobbles around them, they are beginning to contemplate bigger goals.

"Everyone has done a great job getting us where we are," says Mike Brown, Sacramento's first-year head coach and among the Coach of the Year favorites. "But now we have to try to sustain it -- or even surpass it."

WHEN SABONIS ARRIVED, Fox assured him fans would be welcoming.

"We never even talked about the trade," Fox says. "I told him how crazy our fans are -- how much they cheer our team."

Still, Sabonis was nervous about the crowd response before his home debut against the Minnesota Timberwolves. As he taped himself up the way he always did before games, Sabonis was surprised to see the rest of his teammates jog to the court without him; the Kings followed a different pregame routine, and hit the floor earlier than the Pacers had. Sabonis would come out alone, all eyes on him.

After losing frustrating games to Houston and Utah, the Boston Celtics went into their Tuesday night matchup against the Sacramento Kings with the hopes of closing their road trip with a 4-2 record. With the return of Robert Williams and Marcus Smart, Boston pulled out a convincing 132-109 win over Sacramento led by Jayson Tatum’s 36 points, tying Larry Bird for the most 30-point games in a season in Celtics franchise history. Jaylen Brown had an efficient 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting, including 4-of-7 from beyond the arc along with 5 rebounds and four assists.

On top of that, Brown and Tatum both scored 25 points or more in the same game for the 66th time this season, the most games by a duo in Celtics history, passing John Havlicek and Jo Jo White. It’s remarkable what Boston’s two stars can do when playing cohesively together, and when they bring their best effort, the rest of the team follows suit. After some shaky games, the Celtics win over the Kings came at a perfect time, and served as a reminder of what this team is capable of when they move the ball, communicate, and play the right way.

Jaylen Brown has been on a hot streak since the All-Star break, and has been a tone setter on offense for the Celtics, shooting 50.9% from the field on 21 shots per game, including 40.2% from beyond the arc on 6.3 threes a game. He’s playing some of his best basketball of the season, and at a time when Boston has needed him desperately, especially while the team has navigated injuries and Jayson Tatum has struggled on offense.

With the regular season winding down and the playoffs inch closer and closer, two interviews with Jaylen Brown have been released, one from The New York Times with Sopan Deb and another from The Ringer with Logan Murdock.

In both pieces, Brown talked about his time with the Celtics, the issues of being a black athlete in Boston, and his future with the team with free agency looming next offseason. He addressed some toxic members of the Celtics fanbase and taking things to a personal level when the team struggles, and now questions seem to be mounting around whether or not Brown will stay after his contract is up next summer.

Jaylen Brown was noncommittal when asked about his future with Boston. pic.twitter.com/7jqIP6Oeth

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) March 21, 2023

If Brown gets an All-NBA nod this year, he’ll become supermax eligible this offseason, which changes the landscape dramatically in Boston’s favor. But there’s still no guarantees, and now both Brown and the Celtics have some level of damage control to do. Following the big win over the Kings, Jaylen took some time to address his now public comments.

“I feel great,” said Brown after the game. “I’m on a 50-win team right now that you can’t take for granted. Tonight was the 50th win, and right now, I’m focused on helping to lead my team for another playoff run. In terms of speculation et cetera, I can’t speculate on anything above what I’m doing right now.”

“I think sometimes when people write articles, they get taken out of context,” Brown continued. “Especially when writers have their own agendas or whatever. So, for me personally, I’m thinking about clarifying some of the things that have been recently said. But other than that, I’m just focused on my team. I’m focused on playing basketball and winnings games.”

Jaylen Brown addresses his recent comments about #Celtics future pic.twitter.com/0GKsbzWWgA

— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) March 22, 2023

In all fairness, Brown has a right to feel the way he feels, and it will be interesting to see what he clarifies down the line if he chooses to do so. He has every right to go to free agency and test the waters if he wants to, and no matter how small of a sect of the fanbase is toxic, now is not the time to invalidate Brown’s statements or feelings for the city of Boston or its fans.

Ultimately, the goal is winning a championship, and that’s what Brown’s focus is on for the time being. If all things work in Boston’s favor, winning fixes everything, he gets All-NBA, and Brown and Tatum get to terrorize the NBA together for at least the next five years.

Looking at the playoff picture entering Tuesday’s games, eight of the 12 teams holding the guaranteed playoff spots (top six in each conference) were in the playoffs last season, while two others (the New York Knicks and LA Clippers) are each just one season removed from their last playoff appearance.

There are two key exceptions among the top 12: the Sacramento Kings in the West and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East. The Kings are on track to make it back to the postseason for the first time since 2006. To put that drought into perspective, Kings star guard De’Aaron Fox was just eight years old the last time the Kings played a playoff game.

The Cavaliers are set to make their first playoff appearance since LeBron James left Cleveland for the Los Angeles Lakers following the 2018 NBA Finals. In fact, this will be Cleveland’s first playoff appearance without James since 1998.

While we have a history with teams like the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers and Denver Nuggets — all of whom have all made the postseason for at least four straight seasons — there is a bit of mystery surrounding the Kings and Cavs and how they will fare once they reach the playoff stage.

Three key questions dog both teams:

1. Can they translate their regular season success to the postseason?

2. While each of these teams have some players with playoff experience, the majority of players on these rosters have little to no playoff experience. The Kings’ top 10 players in minutes have played a combined 113 playoff games. For the Cavs, its 82 games. How will they respond to the pressure of the playoffs?

3. What will happen when opponents are able to scheme against in a best-of-seven series vs. playing them on a random night in the regular season?

We’ll have to wait until April to answer the first two questions, but we do have some data to work with on that final question, thanks to a new wrinkle in the NBA schedule that was introduced last season and expanded this season: the series model, which comes from playing consecutive games against one team in one location.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic about how the NBA creates its schedule, Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics, discussed how the series model was born out of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as a way to reduce team travel at a time when travel was both challenging and risky.

There were the obvious benefits of fewer flights, and if a back-to-back was needed, it would be in the same city. Scheduling that way would not require a team to play a game, board a flight, arrive in a new city in the middle of the night and play the next day. But Wasch also described an additional benefit that he heard from a number of teams:

“The part that was unexpected was we even heard some teams say that strategically the series were helpful because especially as we get closer to playoffs, the idea of playing a team two straight times, having to adjust after the first matchup, helps teams and players get into that playoff mindset where they’re going to be playing the team consecutive times in a series. So, teams really liked that element of it.”

So how did the Kings and Cavs perform in these series-model games, which is the closest the regular season can mimic a playoff series?

Sacramento Kings

A top-3 record clashes with playoff inexperience as GameTime weighs the Kings' odds of winning at least two rounds.

The Kings have played six of these two-game series so far this season — three at home and three on the road — and have one more series with the Portland Trail Blazers coming up March 29 and 31 in Portland. The Kings went 3-3 in the first game of these two-game series, but went a perfect 6-0 in the second game.

The second games of these series were mostly tightly contested. Outside of a 25-point win against Houston in January, each of the other five “second” games were decided by seven points or less, with two of them going to overtime. The Kings prevailed in those two games — at Minnesota on Jan. 30 and home against Dallas on Feb. 11 — to improve to 4-0 in overtime this season.

In a positive indicator for playoff success, the Kings made significant improvements from the first to the second game in these series. Sacramento’s offense averaged 121.5 points per game in the first game but jumped to 128.3 ppg in the second game.

On a player level, it was De’Aaron Fox that stood out in these situations as he averaged team highs in points (30.8 ppg) and assists (7.6 apg) while shooting 52.8%. Fellow All-Star Domantas Sabonis fared well (22.2 ppg on 64.6% shooting, 12.3 rpg and 6.3 apg), while sixth man Malik Monk contributed 18.2 ppg on 56.1% shooting and 50% on 3-pointers.

Two of these series came against Houston, the worst team in the West this season. But the other two-game series came against teams currently in the playoff or Play-In Tournament picture: Denver (1st), Dallas (7th), Minnesota (8th) and Oklahoma City (9th).

Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland had only two of these traditional two-game model series and both came in the past two weeks: at Miami (March 8 and 10) and at Charlotte (March 12 and 14). The Cavs went 2-0 in the opening game of those series and 1-1 in the second game.

Cleveland has two more of these traditional two-game model series left, beginning Tuesday in Brooklyn (7:30 p.m. ET, NBA TV) with the second game set for Thursday. The Cavs also have a two-game set against the Magic in Orlando (April 4 and 6).

However, Cleveland had a few other series that stood out when reviewing their schedule. There was a home-and-home set against the Chicago Bulls that the Cavs swept, winning at Chicago on Dec. 31 and in Cleveland on Jan. 2.

Cleveland also had three instances of playing the same team twice in the same week, with only one game sandwiched between, including both of their series against the Celtics.

The Cavaliers played the Celtics in Boston on Oct. 28, then hosted the Knicks on Oct. 30 before hosting the Celtics on Nov. 2. The Cavs won both all three of those games, with both wins vs. Boston coming in overtime.

Early January brought a similar such series with the Phoenix Suns: a home game against the Suns on Jan. 4, a road game against the Nuggets on Jan. 6, and a road game against the Suns on Jan. 8. That time, the Cavs swept the series with Phoenix, but lost the middle game to Denver.

Just weeks ago, the Cavs visited the Celtics on March 1, hosted Detroit on March 4 and then hosted the Celtics on March 6. Cleveland went 2-1 once again, but only one of those wins came against Boston (in overtime in the second such contest).

If we include these series where the Cavs saw the same opponent twice in five days or less, then they also have six series worth of data for us to examine. The Cavs went 5-1 in both the first game and the second game of each of these series.

Like the Kings, the Cavs had multiple games go to overtime in the second game of these series. Cleveland won all three overtime games — two against Boston and one against Chicago — and are an NBA-best 7-0 in overtime games this season (with three of those wins coming vs. Boston).

In another parallel with the Kings, the Cavs were led in scoring by their All-Star guard. Donovan Mitchell averaged 40 ppg, 5.6 rpg and 5.4 apg while appearing in five of the six “second” games. Former All-Star guard Darius Garland (21.8 ppg, 9.5 apg) also played well while appearing in four of the six games.

When faced with the task of beating the same team in consecutive games, the Kings were 6-0 while the Cavs went 2-1. When we add the three Cavs series where they face the team twice in five days or less, Cleveland’s mark improves to 5-1 on the back end of these series.