Residents of Russia's Far East observe comet-like object in evening sky

Residents of the Far East of Russia could observe the movement of a space object in the sky.

It is believed that the phenomenon that eyewitnesses filmed on video was Comet Pons-Brooks. This comet nears the Earth once in every 71 years.

Huge luminous stripes appeared in the evening sky above the Khabarovsk and other neighbouring regions of Russia. The luminous object split into parts and slowly moved in the sky. Some observers thought they saw a rocket take off, or the passage of a comet or meteorite.

Click here to see more videos of the phenomenon

Experts believe that people could observe the burning debris of two rockets that had been launched into space a few days ago — Soyuz MS -25 or Falcon 9.

The luminous object splitting into parts, which was observed in the evening sky by residents of the Far East, was the process of combustion of a spacecraft or a launch vehicle in the earth's atmosphere, Crimean astronomers believe.

"This is definitely not a comet, since the fall of a comet in the earth's atmosphere always occurs at much higher speeds and greater energy release. Fragmentation in the atmosphere into relatively long-lived parts is not typical in comet observations either. As a rule, such fragmentation indicates that we are observing the decomposition of a complex structure consisting from many durable elements that may fall apart and burn in the atmosphere for a long time, for example, a rocket stage or a satellite,” astronomer and researcher at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Sergei Nazarov told RIA Novosti.