Kosmos 954 and Operation Morning Light: The History of Efforts to Contain Radioactive Debris Spread across Canada by a Soviet Satellite

In the predawn sky of northern Canada on the morning of January 24th, 1978, a long streak of blue fire suddenly rushed across the starry vista northeast of the remote town of Yellowknife. Those out on the bitterly cold night, with a temperature many tens of degrees below zero Fahrenheit, saw a brilliant leading object sheathed in flames, blue or bluish red, and shining with incandescent intensity. Other, smaller objects or fragments shed off it, arcing or tumbling earthwards on their own t...