On the evening of May 28th around 9:30 pm, a fire meteor was spotted in Guangdong, Hainan, and other areas, causing the night sky to light up as bright as day, accompanied by a loud noise according to witnesses.
A video shared by a netizen from Maoming, Guangdong, showed a fire meteor streaking across the sky over Maoming and Zhanjiang in western Guangdong. The dashcam recorded the moment when the fire meteor passed by, illuminating the night sky.
The video indicates that the fire meteor appeared around 9:30 pm on the 28th. Commenters mentioned sightings of the fire meteor not only in western Guangdong and Zhanjiang but also in northern parts of Hainan, including Haikou and surrounding areas.
One netizen described, “I happened to see it while working on something on the wall, it flew over my head, and at first, I thought my mom was shining a flashlight on me. It was extremely bright, just like a missile launch. I thought it was a sky lantern, lighting up half of the sky, and then there was a massive explosion after about 15 seconds.”
Renowned astronomy blogger Liu Boyang told the Southern Daily that based on the materials circulating online, the phenomenon indeed appeared to be a fire meteor.
According to the Beijing News, Guo Lijun from the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed that the object illuminating the night sky in Maoming and other places was indeed a “fire meteor.”
Science popularizer “Feng Yun Mengyuan” estimated that this “fire meteor” had a significant size, and its impact energy upon entering the atmosphere could range from 500 to 2000 tons of TNT equivalent, making it the largest recorded “fire meteor” within Chinese territory since the one in eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in 2020.
Subsequently, the topic of the fire meteor in Maoming and other areas gained widespread attention, trending on social media.
Over three thousand years ago, China had records of meteors and meteorites, often seen as omens of significant events and mostly ominous signs.
Historical records like the “History of the Song Dynasty” documented celestial events like red skies and meteor showers before the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the era of the People’s Republic of China, there have been several meteorite events preceding important incidents.
For instance, in March 1976, a rare meteorite astronomical event occurred in Jilin City, coinciding with the passing of three major Communist Party leaders – Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Mao Zedong, as well as the devastating Tangshan earthquake in Hebei and an imperial court coup in the Forbidden City. In September 1971, a meteorite shower in Shuangyang County, Jilin Province, coincided with the mysterious death of Lin Biao, the number 2 figure in the Communist Party.
On April 15, 1986, a meteorite event in Suizhou City, Hubei Province, resulted in a demand for General Secretary Hu Yaobang to resign from the top echelons of the Party. On February 15, 1997, a meteorite shower in Juancheng County, Heze City, Shandong Province preceded the official announcement of the passing of Deng Xiaoping on February 19th.