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Last night in Turkey, bright blobs of light were seen spilling out of the sky in many cities, especially Istanbul and Ankara.
A bright spot of light that appeared in the Istanbul sky yesterday evening disappeared downwards.
Onlookers looked on in amazement, some of whom recorded the moment on their mobile phone cameras.
So, was the light ring that was a hot topic on social media a meteorite?
Experts say it’s unlikely the light mass was a meteor.
Associate Professor Dr. Mesut Yilmaz, director of Ankara University’s Kraiken Observatory, said the bright mass of light that appeared in the sky yesterday looked more like space debris than a meteor because of its speed.
Yilmaz said he had seen the released images but that it was difficult to say anything definitively based on the images available, adding, “As a first observation, looking at the images, the object does not look like a meteor because it looks like it is entering the atmosphere at a slightly slower speed. Meteors enter the atmosphere much faster – the lowest can be 40,000 km per hour, the highest 260,000 km per hour, but looking at the images there it looks like a slow-speed object. It could be space debris,” he said.
Yilmaz noted that there are thousands of satellites in space and said, “What is appearing in the sky could be debris that has broken off from these satellites, space stations or rockets.”
Assessing the impact of the falling object, Yilmaz said:
“If it was a meteorite, the impact would definitely have been felt. I mean, if it fell it would create a significant crater, if it fell in a forested area it could cause explosions and fires, if it fell in the ocean it could cause a small tsunami. So the impact of the explosion would definitely be felt. Every year, a ton of particles already fall into the atmosphere, most of which melt away in the atmosphere and never reach Earth. So if it was a meteorite, we would definitely know. If this was a man-made artifact, it would actually break up and crumble, and if it fell to the ground it wouldn’t have a big impact. It’s probably still fine where it fell.”4
Yılmaz pointed out that meteor falls are a natural process, saying, “Thousands of meteors already fall on Earth every year. Some of them are big, some are small, some are a little bit bigger. There is nothing unusual here either. As long as no meteor with a diameter of more than 30 meters falls. They are our biggest fear, because it can actually cause serious harm and harm to the world,” he said.
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Yilmaz said people who come across debris falling from the sky should not touch it “because they may contain radiation sometimes. “They should stay away and immediately call the authorities,” he warned.
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