I saw this blazing thing in the sky from Chennai, India at around 21:00 IST. Is this by any chance the Florence asteroid ? If not, what is this ? I'm pretty sure that this cannot be a firecracker because it was huge with large flames and it actually lasted in sky for at least 30 seconds till it reached heights where commercial aircrafts fly.
NOTE: This object was moving from the ground and upwards towards the atmosphere.
Congratulations, you have seen a fireball. An especially bright meteor. It was bright and fast. This is a rock, a very small asteroid, hitting our atmosphere and "buring up". It is also possibly a satellite or space junk re-entering. Re-entering satellites look move slower than asteroids. You can see fireball videos on youtube, as well as re-entries, to compare.
This event was also witnessed from Puducherry, the details seem to match up quite well. The time is slightly out, but the location is spot on. You can add your report at http://fireballs.imo.net/members/imo/report_intro
No, its not Florence, which will not be entering our atmosphere, and so will not appear to be burning, it will be a single point of light. It will be moving much slower, and won't be visible with the naked eye.
No, it's not Florence. Florence is quite faint - 9th magnitude currently- so about 1/15th of the brightness of the faintest star visible to the unaided eye. If it were a long enough exposure to show Florence, there would likely be other stars visible in the picture.
And although Florence is moving quite quickly, I doubt it's moving as fast as appears in your photo, but without knowing how long the exposure is, it's hard to be definitive.
In addition, the brightness appears to vary, which suggests that is could be a satellite, or a meteor, or possibly an aeroplane.
