A fireball that lit up UK skies on Sunday night is thought to be a small piece of an asteroid that entered the Earth's atmosphere, according to scientists.
The meteor was spotted just before 10pm last night (February 28) and caused a sonic boom across southern England, according to scientists from the UK Fireball Alliance (UKFall), which is led by staff at the Natural History Museum.
UKFall said the bright light in the sky could be seen from Ireland to the Netherlands and is set to break the world record for the most-reported meteor ever after 758 people contacted the International Meteor Organisation's website about it.
People across the UK spotted the fireball, with many people managing to capture it on cameras, dashcams, and even home security systems.
Jon Maher captured the meteor on his dashcam while he was driving. He posted the video on Twitter last night.
Dr Ashley King, from UKFall, said: “The video recordings tell us its speed was about 30,000 miles per hour, which is too fast for it to be human-made ‘space junk’, so it’s not an old rocket or satellite.
“The videos also allowed us to reconstruct its original orbit around the sun. In this case, the orbit was like an asteroid’s.
“This particular piece of asteroid spent most of its orbit between Mars and Jupiter, though sometimes got closer to the Sun than Earth is.”
After entering the atmosphere it is likely that the meteor broke up and that "a few fragments" would have reached the ground.
“If you do find a meteorite on the ground, ideally photograph it in place, note the location using your phone GPS, don’t touch it with a magnet, and, if you can, avoid touching it with your hands,” said Dr Katherine Joy of the University of Manchester.
Sam Harris, from Leeds, said he was in bed talking to his fiancee when he witnessed the “breathtaking” fireball.
“As I looked out of the window I saw what I thought at first was a huge firework, but it was descending in an ark,” the 28-year-old civil servant said.
“There was a trail of orange and green and it was incredibly bright!
“It was breathtaking… I couldn’t sleep for a few hours afterwards – I had a strange adrenaline kind of buzz!”
