‘Flame in the sky’ spotted by UAE residents turns out to be meteor

A meteor was spotted in the skies of Dubai on Monday evening, the Dubai Media Office revealed on its official Twitter handle.

“Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre confirmed that a meteorite has passed through the skies of Dubai,” the office posted it at 9.05pm on Monday.

 Initially, many residents had posted pictures and videos of the meteor shower on social media, some even calling it a “flame in the sky”. They also speculated over whether it was a meteor, an airplane or a space station.

Many amateur astronomers even suggested that it could be debris of dead satellites.

It’s a meteor!

However, the General Civil Aviation Authority, GCAA, confirmed, in a statement carried by WAM, that a meteor, which had penetrated the Earth’s orbit, had been spotted in the UAE sky tonight.

The GCAA said that the passing of the meteor was a natural and regular phenomenon at this time of the year, as meteor showers become active during this period, which would then peak by 20th October.

The GCAA clarified that meteors were big metal rocks that burn completely in the atmosphere or might even reach earth and collide with it.

However, the Associated Press said that the light seen in the night sky over the United Arab Emirates likely was a discarded Russian rocket breaking up after re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Aerospace websites and others say it likely came from an SL-4 rocket from the launch of cargo spacecraft Progress MS07 on Saturday.
The unmanned spacecraft, which blasted off from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch complex in Kazakhstan, carried 2.5 metric tons (2.75 tons) of water, food and scientific equipment to the International Space Station.

source: Alarabiya