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. A resident of Buldhana of Maharashtra said that the streak of light was seen by several people in the district.
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.
These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories.
first published:April 3, 2022, 11:28 a.m.
