Sudhanshu Shekhar
In what appears to be a meteor shower, stunning footage has captured the blazing streak of light cutting through the night sky over Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The yellow streaks of light appear to be meteor showers that left the people pleasantly surprised.
Such sightings were reported in Buldhana, Akola, and Jalgaon districts of Maharashtra around 7.30 pm. They were also seen from Barwani, Bhopal, Indore, Betul, and Dhar districts of neighboring Madhya Pradesh
A local government official in eastern Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district said an “aluminum and steel object” reportedly fell at Ladbori village in Sindewahi tehsil around 7.45 pm.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell referred to the event seen over Maharashtra as a possible “re-entry of a Chinese rocket stage” that was launched in February 2021.
What is a meteor shower?
A meteor shower happens when Earth passes through the path of a comet. When this happens, the bits of comet debris, most no larger than a grain of sand, create streaks of light in the night sky as they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Bits of debris that enter the Earth’s atmosphere are called meteors.
On any night, several small meteors shoot across the sky. However, during a meteor shower, tens to hundreds of meteors can be seen each hour. Many of these meteor showers can be predicted and occur at the same time each year.
Ten Facts About Meteors:
- A meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet or asteroid.
- Meteors are bits of rocks and ice ejected from comets as they move in their orbits about the sun.
- A meteorite is a meteor that reaches the ground.
- Meteor showers get their names from the constellation in where their radiant is located. Perseids come from Perseus, hence the name Perseids.
- Comets continuously eject material with each passage around the sun; this replenishes the shower meteoroids.
- Approximately 30 meteor showers occur each year that are visible to observers on Earth. Some of these showers have been around longer than 100 years. For example, the Perseid meteor shower, which occurs each year in August, was first observed about 2000 years ago and recorded in the Chinese annals.
- Meteors are sometimes observed with red, yellow, or green trails. The colors are caused by the ionization of molecules – like oxygen which appears to be green.
- A fireball is a meteor that is brighter than the planet Venus.
- Radar indicates there are 12,000 meteors on a given night that are about the size of a piece of dust.
- The International Space Station has shielding to protect it from meteors up to an inch wide.
Sources: Websites of NASA, Cool cosmos, and Media reports from the Internet.
