A meteor lit up streets across Renfrewshire on Wednesday night as the fireball rocketed across the night sky.
Particularly visible from Johnstone, the meteor zoomed across the sky at around 10pm and was reportedly seen by hundreds of people in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Much more visible than a traditional meteor, or shooting star with just a momentary streak of light, the meteor was visible for at least 10 seconds.
Danny Nell was walking his dog in Johnstone when he saw the fireball and recorded the image on his phone.
Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
The 21 year old told the PA News Agency: “I was walking the dog and it was strangely enough 10pm on the dot, and I just saw the flash in the sky and pulled out my phone and recorded it.
“I thought it may be a firework at first because there was a lot of Scottish football on but quickly realised it wasn’t and just grabbed my phone to see if I could catch it.”
John Pressly, science curator at Paisley’s Coats Observatory, didn’t see the fireball but said he’s convinced it was a meteor having seen some of the footage.
He told the Express: “From what I have seen on videos and things, it was most likely a meteor.
“It had that green colour and tinge to it which indicates nickle in the atmosphere and they are the most common types of meteor.
“It has probably, if it survived, landed in the sea off the Hebrides.”
Explaining such large fireballs are relatively rare to spot, John said it was likely around 20cm in width.
He added: “A fireball of this size is probably quite rare, normally it is a tiny string of light that you see.
“Seeing them is absolute luck, it’s about being in the right place at the right time on a clear night.”
When a meteor hits the atmosphere, the air in front of it compresses incredibly quickly. When a gas is compressed, its temperature rises. This causes the meteor to heat up so much that it glows. The air burns the meteor until there is nothing left.
The UK Meteor Network has now said it is “investigating to ascertain what the object was - meteor or space debris”.
Steve Owens, an astronomer and science communicator at the Glasgow Science Centre saw the fireball too.
He said: “Normally these tiny little streaks of light, these little shooting stars, they all burn up and everything just vanishes and evaporates in the atmosphere, but the thing last night was bigger than a little bit of dust.
“The one last night might have been the size of a golf ball or maybe a cricket ball, maybe bigger than that, so it’s certainly not impossible that bits could have landed.”
He added: “It looked like it was travelling a fair distance as these things do and it was fairly flat across the sky as I saw it.
“The UK Meteor Network, which has had hundreds of reports from around Scotland and further afield, is going to be able to triangulate all of those reports to work out its trajectory.
“It looked to me like it was heading towards the west and given that people in Northern Ireland were reporting seeing it, it could well have passed over land and ended up in the Atlantic, but it’s certainly not impossible that it landed, finding it will be the challenge.”
Download the FREE Renfrewshire Live app now for all the latest news, features and sport in your area. Available on both Android and Apple. Download here: smarturl.it/RenfrewLiveSocial
