Explained: Was The Streak Of Light Seen In Maharashtra And MP A Meteor Shower Or Space Debris

Hundreds of stargazers in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat were drawn to a bright stream of light slashing through the sky at night last week, which appeared to be a meteor shower.

Over the last few years, as more and more individuals record such incidents, mysterious objects soaring over the night sky have been a source of considerable discussion. With various footage of these strange situations, however, it becomes much easier to discover the enigma swiftly.

What is a meteor shower?

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Meteors are intense, sparkling flashes of light seen in the dark sky.

When dust or fragments from asteroids or comets reach Planet's surface at a great pace, meteor showers occur. As meteors collide with air molecules, friction is created, which causes the meteors to heat up. Most meteors are vaporised by the heat, resulting in shooting stars.

Numerous tiny meteors might be seen shooting throughout the sky on any given night. During a meteor shower, on the other hand, tens to hundreds of meteors are seen every hour. Much of these meteor showers are predictable and happen at the same time every year.

Why would Earth encounter many meteoroids at once?

NASA

Comets revolve around the sun in the same way that Earth and the other planets do. Comet rotations are typically uneven, in contrast to the relatively perfect circles of planets. While the Earth's orbit of the Sun is nearly round, most comets have very elongated elliptical orbits. As a result, certain comets' orbits cross or partially cross the course of the Earth.

Since a comet's nucleus is composed of a mixture of frozen elements and loosely cemented "dirt," it gradually falls away when heated by moving close to the Sun, resulting in the noticeable tail.

As a comet approaches the sun, several of its frozen cover burns off, producing a slew of debris and rock bits. As the intense rays burst off even more ice and debris, it scatters all along the comet's course, notably in the inner solar system (where humans dwell). Then, on multiple occasions a year, as Earth travels around the sun, its orbit intersects that of a comet, causing Earth to collide with a swarm of comet debris.

Since these collisions happen at those locations in the earth's orbit, meteor showers associated with specific comet movements appear around the same time each year. The brightness of a meteor shower might fluctuate from year to year because some areas of the comet's passage are richer in debris than the others. When the earth enters the comet's path soon once the parent comet has departed, a meteor shower is usually at its peak.

Can meteor showers do damage?

NASA

The large chunk of meteors heat up considerably prior to their reaching the ground, causing no danger to the public or property. A tiny portion of material sustains entry into Earth's atmosphere and erupts just above earth's crust on rare occasions.

A meteorite is the substance that drops to Earth from a meteor. Many meteors are so small that they dissolve in the atmosphere, some as little as a grain of sand. Meteorites are bigger types that touch the Earth's surface and are extremely rare. When meteorites do impact the ground, their pace is about half of what it was when they entered, and they leave craters 12 to 20 times their original size.

Every year, there are accounts of meteorites causing property damage, and one person has died as a result of a meteorite.

Large meteors can erupt above the ground, inflicting broad destruction from the blast and subsequent fire. This occurred over Siberia in 1908, and is known as the Tunguska incident. Witnesses observed a ball of fire race through the sky on June 30, 1908, from hundreds of miles away, implying that the meteor entered the atmosphere at an oblique angle.

It burst, bringing scorching gusts and loud noises into the surrounding villages and shaking the earth enough to break windows. For several days, little fragments thrown into the air lighted up the night sky.

On Feb. 15, 2013, a 17-meter rock erupted 12 to 15 miles far above Planet's surface over Chelyabinsk, Russia, destroying structures and wounding more than 1,000 people.

Re-entry of a Chinese rocket?

Representational Image: Uunsplash

Several scientists, notably Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, tweeted that the flashing light was in fact the "re-entry of a Chinese rocket stage" opened in February 2021, ignoring the fact that internet users mistook it for a meteor shower.

"I assume this is really the return of a Chinese rocket stage, the Chang Zheng 3B serial number Y77, which was released in February 2021, and the path is a strong match," tweeted McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The spacecraft fragments were later discovered in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district, according to a journalist from the region's Ladbori hamlet.

Such occurrences have been recorded on a regular basis in the past. Last year, the Long March 5B, China's largest rocket, suffered the same result when its debris gatecrashed the Planet's surface. Since countries continue to deploy hundreds of space missions each year, such "uncontrolled re-entry" operations appear to be becoming increasingly common.

NASA's Skylab crashed and disintegrated above Australia's inhabited rural stretch in 1979, making it one of the first reports of such an event. The debris has found its passage into the Indian Ocean in certain cases.

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