Latest news with #bolide
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Watch a brilliant 'fireball' meteor explode over China on May 28 (video)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Residents of Maoming, China were treated to a celestial light show earlier this week when a surprise fireball burst to life overhead, illuminating the city before disappearing in an intense flare of light. The fireball burned up over the southern Chinese province of Guangdong at 9:33 p.m. local time on May 28, according to multiple dashcam videos that have circulated online in the wake of the event. The videos show the meteor make a dramatic 5-second journey through the night sky, during which it changed color from a pale green-blue hue to an intense burst of orange-yellow light. This particular fireball may have been a bolide - a special meteor that breaks apart with a dramatic flash of light. A fireball is the name given when a relatively large meteor - over 1 millimeter in diameter - collides with Earth's atmosphere, triggering a fleeting flare of light that can outshine the planets themselves in the night sky. The color of a burning meteor is determined by a number of factors such as its speed, composition and how it compresses the air in its path, according to the American Meteor Society. Bright, reddish flashes of light can arise when fast-moving meteors strike the atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour, compressing the air in front of them. This process causes them to glow brightly in the night sky and has the potential to force atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen atoms trapped in the meteor's path to release an abundance of reddish light, according to NASA. Meteors with a high sodium content also have a tendency to burn with an orange-yellow light. No major meteor showers were active on the night in question, so it's likely that the Maoming City fireball was born of a 'sporadic meteor' - a random piece of space debris left over from the creation of the solar system that happened to collide with Earth on May 28. Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@
News.com.au
12-05-2025
- Science
- News.com.au
Witnesses stunned as ‘fireball' meteor lights up Perth skies
Residents in Western Australia have been stunned by a 'fireball' meteor that lit up the skies. The bright fireball passed through the skies about 6am on Sunday over the Central Wheatbelt, producing a brilliant yellow flash and a trail of bright green. Witnesses were able to catch a glimpse of the early-morning meteor from Perth to the Goldfields, however, experts are yet to determine where it eventually landed. The Perth Observatory said the astronomical sight was 'most likely an iron meteor' which had been 'orbiting within the inner Solar System'. 'To shine that brightly, the fireball — technically known as a bolide — would have been about the size of a cricket ball to a basketball,' the observatory said online. According to Perth Observatory's Matthew Woods, the meteor would have been travelling between 16 to 60km per second, leaving behind a trail of green as the built-up friction melted. He told 9News it was 'one hell of a meteor'. 'That was very nice … little surprise for Mother's Day,' he said. Online, witnesses were dumbfounded by the 'spectacular' sight, with some believing it was an aeroplane. 'Never seen anything like it,' one person wrote. 'Thought someone was driving at us with high beams on at first,' said another, who watched it pass overhead from Newdegate. A resident from Mt Magnet said they initially thought the 'huge and burning bright orange-red' light was 'the moon until it moved'. Some thought the meteor was the Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era spacecraft that plunged back to earth more than 50 years after its failed launch to Venus. However, Curtin University astrophysicist Steven Tingay told the ABC it was unlikely the fallen spacecraft, which likely landed over the Indian Ocean on Saturday, though European and US agencies are yet to confirm its exact location.
