Meteor Shower Or A Rocket Re-entry In The Night Skies Of Nagpur Bedazzles People
Stunning footage has been captured on camera of a blazing light cutting across the night sky in parts of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The yellow streaks of light appear to be meteor showers that left the people pleasantly surprised. Sightings were reported from Nagpur in Maharashtra and Jhabua Barwani districts in Madhya Uttar Pradesh.
Stunning footage has been captured on camera of a blazing light cutting across the night sky in parts of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The yellow streaks of light appear to be meteor showers that left the people pleasantly surprised.
Sightings were reported from Nagpur in Maharashtra and Jhabua, Barwani districts in Madhya Pradesh.
#WATCH | Maharashtra: In what appears to be a meteor shower was witnessed over the skies of Nagpur & several other parts of the state. pic.twitter.com/kPUfL9P18R
¡ª ANI (@ANI) April 2, 2022
Re-entry of a Chinese rocket
While many people described the sighting as a ¡°meteor shower,¡± astronomer Jonathan McDowell speculated that the celestial event seen over Maharashtra was actually the ¡°re-entry of a Chinese rocket stage¡± that was launched in February 2021.
Twitter
Suresh Chopade, president of Skywatch group, Nagpur, said a rare event was observed by several people in Maharashtra in the evening and they shared its videos and pictures.
Chopade said he had been observing space-related events for the past 25 years and it seems like the event was related to a satellite.
¡°It seems like a satellite of some nation might have fallen accidentally or may have been caused to fall intentionally. It does not seem like a meteor shower or fireball,¡± he said.
He said it could be parts of a meteorite but the colours indicated that ¡°a metallic thing¡± has accompanied it while coming towards earth.
¡°I believe this is the reentry of a Chinese rocket stage, the third stage of the Chang Zheng 3B serial number Y77 which was launched in Feb 2021 ¨C it was expected to reenter in the next hour or so and the track is a good match,¡± he said.
Shashank Gattewar, who lives in Manish Nagar, Nagpur, shot the scene with his mobile. He said he suddenly saw some light in the sky, ¡°where one after the other several spheres¡± were coming in the direction of the earth from the sky.
Possible meteor shower or rocket re-entry seen over skies of Maharashtra
¡ª ANI Digital (@ani_digital) April 2, 2022
Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/0vFnhbXwCK#Meteorshower #Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/I2g2Px38X8
Another person said that they saw the blaze for two minutes and later the light disappeared. ¡°We saw these balls going towards Aurangabad,¡± he said.
The Tehsildar of Yeola, Pramod Hile, said an ¡°ulkapat¡± (meteorite) was visible in the sky at around 8 pm.
¡°I saw it myself. It was split into four parts. No damage has been caused and there is nothing to fear,¡± he said.
Many people shared the visuals of the meteor shower on Twitter.
What are meteor showers
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate or originate, from one point in the night sky.
These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories.
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