No. 232

Meteor witnessed across Britain

Police forces in the UK say they have received a number of calls reporting what is believed to have been a meteor.

A "huge fireball" was reported travelling from northern Scotland to southern England at about 21:40 GMT, amid fears a plane had crashed.

Police received reports of a "bright light" and "orange glow", but aircraft-related incidents were ruled out.

The Met Office tweeted: "Hi All, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite."

Meteors are particles from space that burn up as they plummet through Earth's atmosphere, sometimes emitting light, creating a "fireball" effect.

Meteorites are larger, more durable objects that survive heating in the atmosphere and land on Earth. It is not known if that happened on Saturday.

Hundreds of people tweeted about what they had seen and the Kielder Observatory, in Northumberland, described it as a "huge fireball" travelling from north to south over the county.

Meteor showers are eagerly sought out by stargazers. Gary Fildes, observatory director, who was with a group of about 40 people when they spotted the meteor, said: "We got an incredible view. It was phenomenal.

"They went absolutely mental. I was getting questions about what it is and is it going to end life on Earth? It was massively exciting."

Mr Fildes, who has been an astronomer for 30 years, said he had never seen anything like it and described the experience as "one I'll never forget as long as I live".

Dr David Whitehouse, a science writer, said: "Occasionally you get a very big piece of debris coming into the Earth's atmosphere and this causes a fireball.

"When you see this fireball breaking up, you're seeing the wreckage of a planet that couldn't form properly when the solar system was young and a bit of rock that has been orbiting the Sun for perhaps thousands of millions of years."

Read more |  BBC News, 05.03.12

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