Revealed: It wasn't a UFO, but China's rocket gathering atmospheric data
The launch was aimed at gathering scientific data from various levels of the upper atmosphere and not a military experiment, space centre says
The mainland has launched a research rocket to gather high-altitude scientific data, with the experiment attracting widespread public attention because it was visible in the evening sky across many provinces.
Scientists conducted the test on Monday for research purposes, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' National Space Science Centre said yesterday in a statement posted on its website. It was issued following heated online speculation that it was a military experiment.
The experiment, which may have lasted less than 10 minutes, started around 9pm with the launch of a sounding rocket, carrying scientific instruments, at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan .
The flight was designed to collect raw scientific data from different layers of the atmosphere, with scientists most interested in the ionosphere, the earth's magnetic field, cosmic rays, the sun's ultraviolet and X-rays and meteorite dust.
"The experiment has reached expected objectives by allowing scientists to obtain first-hand data regarding the space environment at different altitudes," the centre said in Xinhua.
The rocket carried equipment such as a Langmuir probe to study plasma, a detector for high energy particles and a magnetometer.