‘Meteorite? shooting star? missile?’: Officials explain strange ‘fireball’ seen over Japan’s skies

Burning object spotted moving eastward towards city of Okinawa

Strange fireballs seen crossing sky over Okinawa, Japan (Twitter)

Videos of strange streaks of light spotted at night over southern Japan have left people puzzled at the phenomenon.

Several people from the area took to social media to share videos of what looked like one large “fireball”, leaving smaller ones streaking behind it, lighting up the sky on Wednesday night at around 8.30pm local time.

Many shared their theories online on what the strange objects spotted over the Okinawa prefecture in Japan could be.

“What’s this? meteorite? shooting star? missile?” one Twitter user wrote. “It looks like a fireball!” said another.

Japanese officials have, however, seemingly cleared up the mystery and said the phenomenon was likely caused by the debris of a rocket launched from China.

The strange burning object was spotted moving eastward towards the city of Okinawa.

Many spotted the fiery object streaking across the sky from various areas in Japan, including Nago and Itoman in Okinawa prefecture, and Amami in Kagoshima prefecture.

The object was seen flying very slowly for a long enough period of time for experts to rule out the possibility of it being a meteorite.

A Japanese official, who sought to remain anonymous, told AFP that the fiery streaks were likely not shooting stars, but rocket debris.

“Given the information publicly available, we think the falling objects are not fireballs from meteorites, but debris from a rocket,” said the official with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).

“It is possible that (it was) debris from a rocket that was launched by China in November,” he said.

A curator of astronomy at the Hiratsuka City Museum in Kanagawa prefecture also speculated that it may have been a Chinese rocket.

“The object appears to be a rocket launched by China carrying a communications satellite in November last year,” he told local news.

The rocket in question is likely China’s Long March 3B rocket which was launched in November 2022.

Part of the rocket was expected to re-enter the atmosphere, according to the Japanese official, who added that the “fireballs” seen on Wednesday resembled what one might see during the atmospheric entry of debris from a rocket.