Parts of an unmanned Russian cargo spaceship burned across the night sky of the Arabian Peninsula, drawing gasps from Dubai to Riyadh before breaking up in the Earth's atmosphere and scattering in the Indian Ocean.
The fiery end to parts of Progress MS-07 came as planned after it delivered 2.5 metric tons (2.75 tons) of water, food and scientific equipment to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
But its 80-second appearance in the skies of the United Arab Emirates stunned onlookers in a region where Iran regularly test-fires ballistic missiles and Shiite rebels in Yemen have threatened to use them against Abu Dhabi.
Even a day later, government officials still hadn't corrected their earlier statements identifying the object as a meteor.
The disposable spacecraft blasted off Sunday (NZT) from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch complex in Kazakhstan.
Its rockets and stages earlier fell harmlessly and largely unnoticed into the atmosphere, said Hasan Ahmad al-Hariri, the CEO of the Dubai Astronomy Group.
Parts of the ship could be seen re-entering the atmosphere from 7:35 pm (local) Monday, al-Hariri said. It streaked across the Dubai skyline behind the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, drawing both stunned and anxious reaction from those watching.
"It was quite visible for the public," al-Hariri told The Associated Press. "It's not something you see every day. It was beautiful to see that thing up in the sky, disintegrating into pieces."
Soon, "people were banging me with calls," he said.
The governmental Dubai Media Office, citing the sheikhdom's Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, quickly described the aerial display a "meteorite."
The UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that "the meteor was a natural and regular phenomenon at this time of the year."
But it wasn't a meteor. Al-Hariri said it was a 6.5-metre "module" from the launch breaking up some 140 kilometres in the sky.
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