Mysterious green light in night sky over Dubai was probably a meteor,
A green light seen flashing through the Dubai sky on Sunday night was probably a meteor burning up in the atmosphere, experts said yesterday.
Hasan Al Hariri, chief executive of Dubai Astronomy Group, said the phenomenon was probably part of the Quadrantids meteor shower, which was expected to peak last week.
Mr Al Hariri said falling debris, which can often take on a green hue as it burns in the atmosphere, could be expected in the following days.
“It looks like a greenish light coming down quite slowly,” he said, adding that the occurrence was quite common.
There were several other explanations, Mr Al Hariri said, including burning gas leaving the nozzle of a launching spacecraft, or the discharge of particles above a thunderstorm, but these were much rarer.
On Sunday, residents took to social media about 7pm asking for information about what some were calling a “green comet” and others described as a “low-flying flare” or firework.
Erwin Viado was stuck in slow-moving traffic in Al Wasl when his colleague pointed out the object in the sky.
“That thing was low, like a flare with a tail,” Mr Viado said. “It looked bigger than a usual shooting star.”
Stu Todd was in Media City, near Media One Hotel, when he saw a bright green light.
“It looked to be very low in the sky and appeared to be shooting downwards like it was going to land in the amphitheatre area of Media City,” Mr Todd said.
A Dubai resident, who did not want to be identified, was stuck in traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road when she saw “something like a comet, or a weird firecracker, or a green light”.
“It crossed Sheikh Zayed Road and ended up behind the showroom and villas,” she said. “I thought it would ignite a fire but then when the traffic allowed me to go further where I saw it falling, I saw nothing.”
Some wondered if the light was the laser on top of the Burj Khalifa, which flashes across Dubai each night.
It is not the only time strange objects have lit up the UAE skies in recent months. In October, residents across the UAE watched as a flaming object whizzed across the night sky.
Many took to social media, puzzled about what the object could possibly be, and musing over whether it was a meteor, a space station or an UFO.
While the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre initially confirmed the object as a meteor, the Dubai Astronomy Group later put forward its theory that the object was debris from a falling Russian rocket used to supply the International Space Station.