Great balls of fire: Celestial inferno lights up Delhi night sky

Delhi-NCR witnessed a rare sight of bright orange streaks in the sky, likely space debris burning up, sparking social media excitement and expert analysis.

Residents across Delhi-NCR were treated to a rare celestial spectacle in the early hours of Saturday: bright orange streaks cutting across the night sky, which experts say were most likely space debris burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. The fiery ‘fireball’ was caught on camera by stunned onlookers, who flooded social media with photographs and videos soon after midnight.

The visuals shared online showed a luminous orange streak blazing for several seconds across the dark sky. (HT Photo)

Astronomers said while a meteor couldn’t be ruled out, such brilliance is uncommon over India. Rishabh Jain, a researcher and space scientist with Delhi’s Nehru Planetarium, recalled similar sightings in 2022 and 2023—both linked to retired satellites. “When a satellite is retired, it loses power, drifts out of control, and eventually plunges into Earth’s atmosphere, where the intense friction tears it apart and sets it ablaze. A meteor, which is natural debris from space, usually shows a single bright head with a trailing tail. But this time, we saw multiple fragments burning independently, just like the 2023 re-entry of a NASA satellite and the 2022 fall of a retired satellite over Maharashtra,” Jain said, adding that no official confirmation has been issued yet.

The visuals shared online showed a luminous orange streak blazing for several seconds across the dark sky. One user, Ujjwal Yadav, posted on X: “Just witnessed this incredible fire streak in the night sky. Looks like a meteor or maybe part of a rocket burning up in the atmosphere of nature’s own light show from my rooftop? Did anyone else spot it too?”

Other experts meanwhile said the celestial display was likely caused by a re-entry of a Chinese rocket. “...Chinese rocket Long March 3B upper stage namely, CZ-3B R/B (Norad ID: 61188). Its uncertain if the reentry was a controlled or uncontrolled one. It was not a shooting star/meteor as suggested by some or a starlink reentry,” Ashwary Tiwari, a meteorologist, who runs the handle IndiaMetSky on X, posted on Saturday.

Sneh Kesari, director at Astrophile Education Services and lead instructor at AstroNomadLife, said such fireballs are “fairly common in the higher latitudes—closer to the poles—but rare in India.”

He explained: “Seeing a fireball this bright over the Indian subcontinent is unusual. Elsewhere, they’re fairly common—large chunks of rock drawn in by Earth’s gravity. As they plunge into the atmosphere, friction ignites them, the surface heats, and the core begins to melt and break apart, scattering smaller fragments along the same trajectory.” Smaller pieces, he added, typically burn up entirely, while larger ones can sometimes survive the fall and land on earth.

“A recent meteorite crash in a small village outside Gurugram comes to mind when such incidents are discussed,” Kesari said, noting that satellites are usually decommissioned through controlled descents over oceans. “Because this was spotted near Delhi, it’s difficult to say whether it was a satellite or its fragments; visuals alone can’t confirm it, so we’ll need official verification.”

Ajay Talwar, an amateur astronomer, said he and three colleagues in Gurugram and Delhi missed the event but pored over the circulating visuals. “While we have not seen it with our own eyes, based on the visuals, it could be space debris or a meteor. There is more probability—around 60-65%—of it being space debris. Also based on its brightness, this can be called a fireball. The definition of a fireball is that it is brighter than the brightest planet, which is Venus. There is something called a bolide, which by definition is brighter than a full moon, but this is closer to a fireball,” he said.