Hundreds of Australians watched a “giant fireball” shoot across the sky on Thursday morning, as a meteor traveled across the country.
The meteor’s bright flash prompted numerous calls to 2GB’s Ben Fordham, as listeners reported the sighting and sought answers about what it could be.
Brad Tucker, a space expert at the Australian National University, confirmed that it was probably a meteor.
“It sounds like a meteor from what everyone says, because of its fast nature: meteors move across the sky in seconds, if at all,” he told Fordham.
“A couple of people noticed the green tint, and that’s the biggest clue because these meteors, which are basically breakaway asteroids, burn blue-green because of the iron-nickel they contain.”
He said asteroids travel at speeds of between 50,000 and 100,000 kilometers per hour, and this one would probably have been visible across Australia.
Hundreds of Australians saw ‘giant fireball’ shooting across the sky
Australian National University space expert Brad Tucker confirmed the sighting was likely a meteor.
“It clearly covered a large distance in a short period of time, so this is definitely a broken piece of an asteroid that randomly crashed into Earth’s atmosphere,” he explained.
Australians from across the country called Fordham after seeing the unusual sight whizzing across the sky.
“I actually just saw something in the sky and thought, ‘I hope I don’t lose control.’ It looked like a meteorite or a fireball. “It was shooting straight down,” Sydney resident Andrew said.
John, who was in Penrith, initially thought it was a shooting star but was baffled by its green tint.
Others saw the meteor in Richmond, about 63 kilometers northwest of Sydney, in the Hunter Valley, about 17 kilometers north of Sydney, and over Sydney International Airport.
Graham, from Toowoomba in Queensland, even saw the meteor fly across the state’s southern sky.
What is a meteorite?
A meteor is a streak of light in the sky caused by a meteoroid traveling at high speed through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteoroids are space rocks that range in size from grains of dust to small asteroids, and the term only applies to rocks that are still in space.
However, when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it is known as a meteor or shooting star.
Sometimes, when a meteor passes through the atmosphere, it can shine brighter than Venus and is then known as a “fireball.”
According to NASA, scientists estimate that about 44,000 kilograms of meteorite material fall to Earth every day.