World

Beijing [China], January 16: People in Beijing and many other places in China discovered unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the sky and this phenomenon quickly 'caused a storm' on social networks.
The South China Morning Post on January 15 reported that residents in Beijing and many other localities in China saw unidentified flying objects ( UFOs ) in the night sky, while an astronomer said it could be is the rocket that puts America's Starlink satellites into orbit.
The unusual phenomenon on the evening of January 14 quickly "caused a storm" on social networks in China, becoming one of the 5 most searched topics on Weibo as of noon on January 15, with more than 900 related posts.
The content appeared on social networks after people saw and took pictures of UFOs in the sky at around 6:00 p.m. on January 14 (local time). One Beijing resident described it as "a moving cloud-like object".
Another person gave a more detailed description, saying that the weather in Beijing at that time was "very clear, no clouds, and then I saw an object that glowed dimly but the light did not flicker."
The glowing object "had three light sources and was shaped like an isosceles triangle," the person wrote, adding that it eventually "disappeared like mist and left no trace."
UFOs were sighted by people in several places in China, including the nearby city of Tianjin, as well as the central province of Shanxi and Shandong to the east.
They described the object as "a misty ball of light" that flew quickly from west to east and made no sound. Many people who saw it noted that there were no flashing lights, making it unlikely that it was a plane.
Researcher Wang Zhuo Xiao at the Astronomical Technology Center of Tsinghua University in Beijing said that it could be the rocket used to launch Starlink satellites belonging to billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX Company (USA).
A Falcon 9 rocket put 22 Starlink satellites into low orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California (USA) at 3:59 a.m. January 14 (local time, 4:59 p.m. in Beijing).
The rocket's trajectory is inclined 53 degrees south and it will fly over northern China halfway, making it visible in Beijing and other cities at dusk or before dawn, Wang said. Sunrise.
He said that once the Starlink satellites are put into orbit, the rocket will exhaust excess fuel, which in the process can scatter light, meaning it can form a cloud around the rocket.
People in northern China saw a similar object in the sky on the night of September 13, 2023 and described it as two beams of light that gradually disappeared after about a minute. This phenomenon was later identified as a rocket cloud that formed after the spacecraft launch.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper