Southern California skies light up with golden meteor showers or comet? Here's what analysts say

Aspectacle of golden streaks adorned the skies of southern California in the wee hours of Tuesday (Apr 2). The incident triggeredastonishment among startled onlookers.

It also led to speculation and queries of all sorts so much so that some people ended up believing that it was comet sightingor remains of the recent Falcon 9 rocket launch from Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Whether it was comet sightingor meteor showerthat residents ofDerbyshire witnessed in the morning hours remainedunclear. However, as per reports citing analysts, the luminous display was attributed to a re-entry event of a Chinese rocket which fragmented upon its return to Earth's atmosphere.

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Notably, whenever a rocket re-enters Earth's atmosphere, it goes through extreme conditions due to heating and the pressure changes it experience. It can lead to fragmentation or breakup of the rocket if it's not properly designed to withstand these stresses.

Amid the flurry of confusion and excitement, eyewitnesses swiftly turned to social media. They flooded the social media platforms with videos and different theories for the sighting.

If reports are to be believed, even the local radio stations started buzzing with people reporting the incident intheir neighbourhood.

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Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit organisation that operates a federally funded research and development centre (FFRDC) dedicated to the space industry and plays a vital role in supporting the US' space programmes, released a statement regarding the incident.

It clarified the reports and attributed the celestial event to the orbital module from a Chinese rocket launched in 2022."Our analysis suggests that the object seen re-entering over Los Angeles this morning was the orbital module from the November 2022 Chinese Shenzhou-15 launch to their space station," it said in a statement.

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By using tracking data from the USSF 18th Space Defense Squadron, analysts reportedly estimated the mass of the object to be approximately 1,500kg (3,300lbs).

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However, the breathtaking spectacle did not cause any harm as remnants were speculated to have safely dissipated with reports quoting space relations expert Madhu Thangavelu said that they may have landed in the Pacific Ocean. "I'm hoping all of it burnt out in upper atmosphere," Thangavelu said as he also urged the space community to be more responsible.

(With inputs from agencies)