Viral Video: ‘Fireball’ That Lights Up Australia Caught on Camera

(Photo : Tasos Mansour on Unsplash)
A fireball lit up the early morning sky in Western Australia which startled residents in the region.

A fireball lit up the early morning sky in Western Australia, which startled residents in the region. A bright flash and powerful explosion sounds were reported around 5 a.m. by individuals as far apart as Corrigin, Nannup, Albany, Newdegate, and Esperance.

Perth Observatory and private surveillance cameras captured the meteor streaking in a cloudy sky on video.

Did you see this morning's #fireball?#ABCGreatSouthern has reported that people in the #SoutWest heard the bang from it. Watch @9NewsPerth tonight to see even better footage.#Perth #WA #perthnews #wanews #communitynews #westernaustralia #perthlife #meteor #bolides #fireballs pic.twitter.com/J5ZaeaD2um
— Perth Observatory (@perthobs) May 18, 2022

As per a report from ABC, one resident named Simon said he was driving Nannup and Bridgetown at about 5:15 a.m. when he saw a "green ball" that seemed like lightning.

The sight in the sky lasted around five seconds, but as it came closer, the ball "just disintegrated," which made him freak out a bit, he added.

In Albany, Elizabeth said she heard "a great big metallic bang" sound when the fireball appeared in the sky.

Hadrien Devillepoix, a Curtin University researcher and member of the Desert Fireball Network, claimed similar sightings occur "hundreds" of times a year across Australia. He said the network's cameras in the lower Great Southern did not identify an explosion, but a report was submitted to the International Meteor Organization's crowd-sourced online page.

Fireball Also Appeared in UK

A few days earlier, a doorbell camera filmed a meteor lighting up the night sky in Warwickshire, a county in the West Midlands region of England.

According to Surrey Live, at 9.45 p.m. in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, a doorbell image shows two friends smoking on a driveway. The bright space rock can be seen hurtling behind them.

According to the UK Meteor Network, more than 100 people saw the fireball as it sped across the sky on Monday night (May 15).

The video uploaded on Facebook shows one of the residents pointing to the sky, exclaiming, "What on earth was that?" Other residents also reported seeing the fireball, which is the second one to be spotted in the Midlands in recent days.

Shamaila @ShamBaig posted on Twitter: "So my doorbell cam did it again! Picked up another fireball meteor!" One of the witnesses said the meteorite sighting was like a scene in a disaster movie.

Sam Copeland, who was traveling the bypass from Coventry to Leamington when the fireball appeared, stated: "It was like the ending of the Deep Impact movie, actually pretty scary. I saw a few drivers actually swerve when it appeared overhead."

So my doorbell cam did it again! Picked up another fireball meteor! @VirtualAstro @UKMeteorNetwork @FireballsUK pic.twitter.com/1fjklrZ8km
— Shamaila (@ShamBaig) May 16, 2022

Are Meteors Dangerous?

Meteors pass through Earth's atmosphere regularly, but experts say they rarely cause problems or harm to humans, per Action News 5 report.

A meteor is a space rock that travels through the atmosphere of Earth. The friction with the air causes it to become tremendously hot when it approaches the Earth's surface. Most meteors burn up completely before reaching Earth's surface.

The rock is called a meteorite if it makes it to the ground. By the time it reaches the Earth, NASA estimates that fewer than 5% of the rock will be left- about the size of a pebble or a fist.

On Earth, more than 50,000 meteorites have been discovered. Nevertheless, there have been relatively few damage cases caused by these meteorites.