Monday, February 24, 2025

December 13, 2021

Sorry KZN, That Wasn’t A Meteor Shower On Saturday Night [Videos]

Sightings in Durban and surrounding areas lit up social media with people talking about meteor showers and comets and even Santa arriving early.

[imagesource: Facebook / Byron ‘Beez’ Robert Meugens]

Witnessing a meteor shower is pretty special.

I did once, back in the days before camera phones, so I can relate to the sheer joy and wonderment felt by those who witnessed Saturday’s nighttime show across parts of KwaZulu-Natal.

Sightings in Durban and surrounding areas lit up social media with people talking about meteor showers and comets and even Santa arriving early.

There was even a quip about it being “rich politicians escaping SA with the looted money”.

Why would they need to escape? It’s not like there will be legal repercussions for the crime.

Anyway, here’s a snapshot of what was shared:

The visuals were epic but the actual explanation is a little less otherworldly, reports TimesLIVE:

Tim Cooper, the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa’s meteorite and near space specialist, said the sighting wasn’t a meteorite but merely debris from a rocket.

“Regarding the bright lights seen last night around 8.30pm, this was probably the re-entry of the SL-4 rocket booster from the Roscosmos Soyuz 2.1a rocket which launched the latest cosmonauts to the ISS [International Space Station] on December 11. The lights had nothing to do with a comet, asteroid, meteor stream or the Geminids as posted variously elsewhere.”

One-time eNCA meteorologist and current CNN employee Derek Van Dam had earlier said it might be debris from SpaceX.

Bonus points for the running commentary:

A similar situation occurred in August in Gauteng likely caused by debris from the Chinese Yuanzheng-1S rocket.

[source:timeslive]