Footage has captured the meteor that rocketed across Victoria and Tasmania in Australia on Friday night, shocking and scaring spectators witnessing its fiery path.
About 8.25pm, the flaming ball appeared green, then orange and red in the spring night sky. It sparked and boomed, followed by a trail of light and smoke.
Posting in a Facebook group dedicated to meteor reports, people described the spectacle as "wonderful", "just incredible" and "beautiful".
The fiery rock travelled down to Tasmania where a rumble and sonic boom could be heard.
The fiery rock travelled down to Tasmania where a rumble and sonic boom could be heard.
Mother of two Jessica Langmead was at her home in Penguin on the north-west coast of Tasmania when the meteor flew by.
"I thought a car with their high beams on had gone past and then there was a god-awful bang and the windows were shaking," she said.
"The noise was something I will never forget. Imagine a jet going past on fire.
"Scared the life out of myself and my kids," she said.
The sightings sparked a fruitless search for the fallen rock in Tasmania. Vice president of the Astronomical Society of Victoria Perry Vlahos explained the important difference between a meteor and meteorite.
"A lot of people have called it a meteorite. It's only that if it hits the ground. This one did not. It's a meteor if it burns up in the atmosphere."
Vlahos said the meteor would have travelled between 30 and 70 kilometres per second and was likely to be flying between 70 and 90 kilometres above the ground. It could be millions, if not billions, of years old.
"It's a bit of space rock most likely that has been around for a long time ... Perhaps it could be leftover material from the formation of the solar system in which case it would make it billions of years old.
"It's been orbiting the sun for all that time and finally it's managed to find itself in the same position as the Earth and its been swept up by the Earth's gravity, pulled into the atmosphere and burnt up."
While it may feel like a rare event, Vlahos said a meteor can be seen a number of times around the world every day. He insists meteors are not on the rise, just the documentation of them.
"In the past we've not had the technology to be able to capture them but these days everyone has a dash-cam or security cameras or a zillion mega-pixel cameras in their back pocket so were capturing them much more and are able to share them with the rest of the world.
As an astronomer, Vlahos is looking to the sky most nights looking at planets and comets and tracing constellations. He guesses he's seen hundreds, if not thousands, of meteors in his life time.
"When I see it, there are yelps of joy," he said. "They never stop being exciting."
While there are meteor showers that you can predict, he said sightings often come down to luck.
"You have to be outside and looking in the right spot. It has to be clear and not cloudy.
"It's a bit like the old Tatts lotto saying, you've got to be in it to win it."
