Birmingham, England – An unusually bright meteor known as a fireball was spotted over Europe on Saturday, with more than a hundred reports of a colorful meteor over parts of the UK and France.
A video recorded at 2:07 a.m. in Birmingham, England, showed a flash of blue light as a bright meteor screamed across the night sky.
According to the International Meteorological Organization (IMO). Over 100 fireball reports Saturday came around the same time from areas across England, Scotland, Wales and France.
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More than a dozen videos shared IMO captured the flash in the sky. Witnesses described the meteorite as “beautiful and bright,” and some witnesses indicated that it was green in color. Color changes can be caused by the burning of various minerals found in metallic meteorites as they interact with the Earth's atmosphere.
One meteor spotter said the flash of light was so bright it was “daytime,” according to an IMO witness report.
Another witness near London wrote: “I have been looking at the night sky for many years hoping to see something like this, what a sight to behold.”
According to NASA, a fireball is an “extraordinarily bright meteor” that reaches a visual magnitude of 3 or brighter by the observer. Fireball events can exceed one meter in size, and fireballs that explode in the atmosphere are called explosive meteors.
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The Quadrantids meteor shower is still ongoing, with peak activity on January 4 American Meteor SocietyThe Quadrantids have the potential to be the most powerful meteor shower of the year, but bad weather usually hinders viewing.
Other annual meteor showers peak in activity in a day or two, but the peak of the Quadrantids occurs over the course of a few hours with up to 120 meteors per hour, according to NASA.
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