India, April 3: A streak, a blazing streak of light which appeared like a meteor shower, over several parts of Maharashtra was actually the remnants of a Chinese rocket re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, according to a US scientist.
Chinese Chang Zheng 5B rocket, which was launched in February 2021, reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday and burned up in the skies over India. Most debris from the rocket will be burned up on re-entry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm.
WATCH: Meteor shower? No, it's a Chinese rocket launched in February of last year. The rocket reentered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up over India pic.twitter.com/ZWtA4K4Xnp
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) April 2, 2022
US astronomer Jonathan McDowell said that the re-entry of the 3B rocket body was expected today.
“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,” McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts said 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 pic.twitter.com/BetxCknAiK
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) April 2, 2022
The Long March 5 family of rockets have been integral to China’s near-term space ambitions from the delivery of modules and crew of its planned space station to launches of exploratory probes to the moon and even Mars.