The fireball, which broke up in the atmosphere, was first thought to be a meteor, but Guam officials have linked it to a failed Chinese satellite launch conducted shortly before the sighting.
Skygazers in the US territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean were treated to some unusual celestial fireworks on Thursday night.
Footage on social media shows the bright, slow-moving object fall before breaking into pieces in a spectacular show.
Warning: Contains strong language
Some have suggested that it was a meteor shower, but Guam officials assumed the object was “likely connected to a scheduled satellite test launch from China”.
On Thursday, China launched a new communications satellite for Indonesia, known as the Palapa-N1 or the Nusantara Dua, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest Sichuan province.
Chinese state media reported that unspecified “abnormal conditions” happened within the third stage of the Long March-3B rocket that carried the satellite.
The incident is similar to another sighting over Guam that took place on 27 December 2019, when a fireball streaked across the sky before disappearing mid-air.
The US National Weather Service suggested at the time that it might have either been a meteor or space junk from a Chinese rocket test that took place earlier that day.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
