Dar es Salaam and Arusha - The sighting of a strange bright light in the sky on Sunday night left hundreds of Tanzanians amazed with astronomy experts connecting the incident with unpredictably heavy rains that pounded Dar es Salaam and other parts of the country on Monday.

The 'strange light in the sky' took a number of Dar es Salaam and Arusha residents by surprise and the incident scared many. Sunday nights normally find some people in big cities enjoying last hours of the weekend in public places but this time round the situation was different as some gave up drinking and rushed home fearing the worst.

Reports from weather stations around the world, however, indicate that Sunday night's sky sighting was that of 'Comet Ison' and the occurrence had been predicted before. The comet may be sighted in different parts of the world between September 29 and October 1.

Dr Noorali Jiwaji, lecturer at the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) at the faculty of Science Technology and Environmental Studies said the incident was likely to have built up moisture sufficiently thus causing the heavy rains on Monday. The last Sunday night, from around 7 pm most parts of the country observed the middle of the circle with a small point of light like a star moving steadily with the cloudy disk thus causing panic to some people.

In Tanzania areas which saw the 'odd light' include Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Manyara regions.Dr Jiwaji who is also a famous astronomy analyst said that the incident was caused by a satellite which rose above the horizon. He said the satellite rose above the horizon from 7:04 pm in the south and disappeared high in the sky at 42 degrees above the sphere in the south east direction at 7:47 pm.

He noted that the planets Venus, Saturn and Mercury were with a group of stargazers, a situation which left observers amazed as they wondered what could have caused it.

Being one of those who observed the occurrence on Sunday, Dr Jiwaji explained that the whole sky was absolutely clear. "I saw it first as a small whitish circular disk, rising from the horizon from around 8 pm in the south direction where it was relatively dark. The circle rose steadily moving towards the north direction becoming a larger whitish cloudy disk as it rose in the sky," he explained.

Dr Jiwaji said that according to international sources, circular cloud formations can occur due to high moisture which causes icy crystals to form in the upper atmosphere which we cannot be seen with naked eyes.

"Such icy crystals due to high moisture cause light to scatter equally in all directions. Since the source was a tiny lighted point this can produce a circular cloudy view like a halo surrounding the satellite," he noted, adding that a similar cloudy ring can be seen surrounding a bright full Moon when there is a lot of moisture in the sky. According to one of the local residents in Arusha, Mr Daniel Osbert, it "was like the sun appearing at night but not shinning as bright as it does during the day," he said and admitted that it was rather baffling.