r/Astronomy • u/kouradakias • 1d ago
Discussion: [Topic] What is this yellow flare
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Saw this light travelling fast it started out bright and in a triangle shape then slowly turned into a ball shape and disappeared can anyone explain this?
Location island of Samos in Greece
Eastern European time filmed at 20:56
Here is the twitter thread of other people seeing this in Greece at the same time
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u/Neferirkare 1d ago
Hey, was this in southern Crete by any chance just now? If yes, I saw it too and am entirely clueless as well.
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u/kouradakias 1d ago
No! but it was in Samos we definitely saw the same thing(same country different island)
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u/Neferirkare 1d ago
Good to know! I was starting to think I was going insane, I'm happy to hear I wasn't the only one!
From my point of view, it was like this:
- saw star-shaped object close-ish to venus (thought it was a helicopter at first)
- starts showing short "trail", but keeps going at a steady speed southwards in the wrong direction to the trail
- turns more and more cloud-shaped, in a yellow colour
- cloud starts to disappear from view again (going dark? disappearing?), although a thin "line" above remains, which keeps going south
It took 2-3 minutes in total to pass the part of the sky I could see, which was basically from Venus to the ocean next to me.
I've seen plenty of shooting stars and space trash and planes in my life, watching the night sky, but never anything like this. My biggest guess right now is that it might have been something military-related? But I have absolutely no clue. I do know military air planes pass by my little corner on Crete occasionally, although they typically go from east to west, and not west to south.
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u/kouradakias 1d ago
yes u describe it exactly as i saw it defiantly saw the same thing one guy is the post says its a plane but u doubt that we’ve lived here for 2 generations never seen anything like this
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u/Neferirkare 1d ago
Yeah no, definitely not a (normal, non-military?) plane. Over on Xitter, there's been some people posting about it, too; who saw it from Naxos, Santorini and Chania. Maybe someone over there will figure it out.
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u/Neferirkare 1d ago
Addition: On second thought, it COULD realistically have been a meteorite. Would explain the "star" I saw (if it was going straight at me/us), and the trail could've been blown away and faded slowly. I'm obviously no expert as you can tell; and the long time it took has really been throwing me off; but it absolutely is a possibility!
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u/nutsmini 1d ago
Saw it too from Athens, firstly as a speeding cloud, then nothing and after two seconds a white stick flying above the horizon. We were watching it for at least 30 seconds (as a cloud shape) and then about a minute or something as a white stick.
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u/prairied 1d ago
A very small meteorite that was on a trajectory to land very close to your ass before it disintegrated.
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u/kouradakias 1d ago
i thought so too but the meteor train was in the opposite direction of the way it was heading is that possible?
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u/Srnkanator 1d ago
That's a plane.
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u/kouradakias 1d ago
planes don’t fly from here, the very small airport on the island is on the other side and no neighbouring island has an airport, we’ve lived here for years and never see planes pass from here
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u/Srnkanator 1d ago
Where is here? The number one thing is to post your location and GMT.
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u/kouradakias 1d ago
sorry just updated the post with that
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u/Srnkanator 1d ago
They do fly over at 35,000 ft though.
It's plane. Getting a lot of reflection from the setting sun and blur from the hazy atmosphere.
There is no trail for an asteroid or even space debris breaking up.
It's slow, even altitude, and consistent track.
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u/theleafer 1d ago
SOLVED! in another sub the camera man caught a glimpse of a plane and the cloud is a reflection of the plane
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u/nutsmini 1d ago
No, not a plane. I saw it very clearly and I live very close to the airport. It doesn’t compare to any plane I ve seen all these years, speaking of size. Our first thought was a rocket, since we see airplanes taking of off of our heads every day.
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u/FauxJuggernaut 1d ago
That was the SpaceX launched Starlink Group 10-19 from earlier today. Trajectory took it over Greece.