Metal ring, spherical object found in Maharashtra after yesterday’s meteor shower

Chandrapur: After a blazing streak of light piercing through the night skies was witnessed in several districts of Maharashtra yesterday, two villages in Sindewahi tehsil in Chandrapur district found a metal ring and a spherical object, an official informed on Sunday.

Speaking to ANI, Tehsildar of Sindewahi, Ganesh Jagdale said that a metal ring of about 3-metre and a spherical object was found “which seemed to have fallen from the sky”. “Yesterday night we received information about a 3-metre ring being found in a village in Sindewahi. The ring was hot and seemed like it has fallen from the sky while a spherical object was found in another village today morning,” he told ANI.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s unusual event was captured by people on their phones and shared on social media.

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. “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.

Jonathan McDowell, who is an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics and comments on space launches, referred to the event in a tweet. “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 – 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.

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 added.