'Green flash' meteor sighting reports across Britain

'Green flash' meteor sighting reports across Britain

A bright meteor has been sighted over Britain in the early hours. Witnesses have described the object as a green flash moving south to north for a few seconds, leaving a magnesium-white trail. Sightings have been reported in locations including London, Hampshire, Stafford and on the east coast of England at 03:16 GMT. Its colour has prompted people on Twitter to describe it as the St Patrick's Day meteor. 'Not uncommon' Describing the meteor as "spectacular", Dr John Mason of the British Astronomical Association said it was bright enough to be categorised as a fireball. He believes it was a piece of cosmic rock which almost certainly came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. He said the green colour was caused by the meteor heating up the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. "Meteors of this kind are not uncommon," he added, saying he estimated there was at least one a week over the UK.

So here we in the UK have yet another Meteor sighting only a few weeks after the one in Scotland

Are they increasing in frequency ? I think so as it doesn't explain if they're a common occurrence why they're suddenly generating such media interest now does it ?

Or perhaps someone could explain why these sightings are now becoming such mainstream "news" when if they were indeed frequent did not used to garner so much media attention.

Are we passing through a part of space that just happens to have a lot of these floating around ?

Certainly interesting though, seen many shooting stars while watching regular showers like the Perseids but nothing on the intensity of this one and the one that was spotted over Scotland.

Here's one video, pretty bright.





And another,

a reply to: Discotech

God DAMNIT!

I was not out late enough to catch that moment! Time was, I would be walking home along the seafront road, black metal crammed into my ears through my phones, enjoying the wind in my face at that time of night. Not so often these days though!

a reply to: Discotech
During certain times of the year, we have meteor showers, and that might increase the likelyhood of fireballs like this one. But I haven't seen any indication from the astronomy community that fireballs have been getting more and more frequent in the course of years or decades.

The "news" industry itself is changing. It's quite possible that such a sighting wouldn't have been so widely spotted and reported 20 or 30 years ago. Nowadays, the media will jump on anything that's flashy and most likely to garner attention.

Original Thread Here

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