A strange light in the sky. What could it be?

If you have an informed guess or even better, I'm all ears.

The semester has started. My sciatica has been a literal pain in my ass (pardon my French), so I’m not writing much these days, neither here, nor there. At best, you can find me on social media, which is not the best place where you should be able to find me unless it’s the Fediverse. (Mastodon and friends)

Still, I managed to write this little thing, because my curiosity is killing me and this has been confusing me for days (exactly four days).

Last Wednesday evening (October 25th), returning home from work, I stopped by the sea to enjoy the landscape and more, as I do almost daily.

The sun had just set and I was enjoying the sky’s colors when I suddenly noticed a strange light in the sky.

Well, check it out:

I filmed it too (with my phone, so excuse the poor quality, not that my other videos are of a much better quality):

I’m trying to figure out what it was, but I really have no clue.

My first reaction was to pull out a “sky map” application and check what was supposed to be there and the most likely culprit is Mars who is closely following the Sun at the moment.

It does look bigger than Mars, but as you may know, planets and such look bigger when they rise or set (see the Moon) because of some optical distortion (basically a magnifying glass effect.) So, sure, Mars, why not?

But what is that sort of tail then? As far as I know, there is no comet visible to the naked eye these days. I wish there were, I think I was in my early 20s the last time (the only time) I saw one.

A meteor? No. You’ve all seen shooting stars before, right? That thing was mostly stable in the sky. Sure, it was slowly falling, but not faster than the sun or a planet would set behind the horizon.

So Mars it is, isn’t it?

What about that tail? Could it be a satellite re-entering the atmosphere but taking a long time to do so? Maybe not one just burning, but a controlled re-entry? No clue.

So, yes, if you’re into astronomy and have a clue of what this could be (and if this is Mars, what is that tail thing?) please tell me, because I’m greatly confused and I really want to know.

Thanks in advance.