An enormous fireball has left residents shocked and stargazers in awe after lighting up the night sky.
Shortly after the remarkable event occurred in western Japan, videos and photos emerged on social media showing a dazzling bright ball of light which could be seen for hundreds of miles.
The dazzling spectacle has been described as a ‘once-in-a-year opportunity’ by scientists
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REUTERS
One witness, Yoshihiko Hamahata, told the NHK public broadcaster: “A white light I had never seen before came down from above, and it became so bright that I could clearly see the shapes of the houses around us.
“It seemed like daylight. For a moment, I didn’t know what had happened and was very surprised.”
The head of Sendai Space Museum in southwest Japan, Toshihisa Maeda, said that the object was an incredibly bright meteor.
He said: “People reported feeling the air vibrate. It was as bright as the moon.”
Mr Maeda said ‘People reported feeling the air vibrate. It was as bright as the moon’
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REUTERS
Mr Maeda added that the meteor appeared to have burnt up above the Pacific Ocean.
Kazuyoshi Imamura, a curator at the Anan Science Centre in Tokushima Prefecture, said: “Seeing an object that produces a flash of this intensity is perhaps a once-in-a-year opportunity.”
Fireball events such as these occur when dust or asteroid fragments burn up after entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
Despite the light emitted being visible for miles, the objects causing fireballs are often around three feet in size according to the US space agency Nasa.
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Local police confirmed they had not received any reports of injuries following the event.
Last year, a bright blue meteor lit up skies across southern Europe when a fireball burst through the atmosphere.
Images and videos circulated across social media showing a chunk of comet hurtling across the skies in the south of Spain and Portugal heading towards the Atlantic Ocean.
It was seen as far away as Brittany in northern France.
A bright blue meteor lit up the sky in Europe last year when a huge fireball burst through the atmosphere
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REUTERS
The European Space Agency said: “We estimate that it flew over Spain and Portugal travelling at ~45 km/s [25 miles per second] before burning up over the Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of ~60 km [37 miles].
“The likelihood of any meteorites being found is very low.”
In March 2021, 120 people across the UK reported seeing a burning ball of space rock in the skies above them.
The phenomenon was sighted in all parts of the country, from Somerset all the way up to Scotland.
