Fireball meteor falls to Earth in Gloucestershire
AFIREBALL meteor that was seen breaking up in the skies above the UK on Sunday night has landed in Gloucestershire, it has been confirmed.
The huge object is understood to have landed somewhere between Swindon Village and Bourton-onthe-Hill, near Temple Guiting according to the UK Meteor Network.
It could have also landed in Bishop’s Cleeve, Winchcombe, Prestbury and Stanway.
Residents of these areas are being urged to get in touch with the UK Meteor Network or National History Museum if they find any fragments of the flying object.
But the Network is reminding people not to travel to this area to find fragments, due to lockdown restrictions.
It comes after people across the UK captured the moment the meteor broke up in the skies on Sunday night.
The UK Meteor Network received almost 800 witness reports and videos from doorbell and dashboard cameras from witnesses, from Liverpool to Cornwall.
Many were disturbed by what was described as a ‘sonic boom’ as the meteor entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
In the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire one woman said: “Scared all the pheasants out of the forest but a few moments beforehand my partner said that was a strange light outside.”
Meanwhile Thomas Page in Bristol tweeted: “Did anyone just hear a dull boom? Almost like a sonic boom?”
In Someset Wayne Hand said he’d seen a “massive meteoroid over Chilcompton” as he was putting the bins out “and it lit up the sky”.
Sightings of the meteor falling from the sky were reported in London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Bath, Liverpool, Devon and Cornwall.
Alex Stoneman checked the security cameras outside both his home and his business.
Commercial photographer Alex, 48, was thrilled to find that his cameras had picked up the fireball powering across the sky over Midsomer Norton and Bath.
The businessman, who runs Alex Stoneman Advertising Photography, said: “My wife and I were both alerted to a notification about the meteor shower from NEST on our phones whilst watching television.
“It was very surreal to see the meteor recorded on security cameras at both work and home at the same time.
“It’s amazing that the cameras can capture the meteorites so clearly. I’d only just put the camera up at home last week!”
According to the UK Meteor Network, a fireball meteor is space debris moving through space at incredible speeds.
As it encounters resistance from our atmosphere, it is forced to slow down. This process creates heat, and light is what we see in the night sky.
Dr Ashley King, of the Natural History Museum and UK Fireball Alliance, said: “The video recordings tell us its speed was about 30,000 miles per hour which is too fast for it to be human-made ‘space junk’, so it’s not an old rocket or satellite.
“The videos also allowed us to reconstruct its original orbit around the sun. In this case, the orbit was like an asteroid’s. This particular piece of asteroid spent most of its orbit between Mars and Jupiter, though sometimes got closer to the Sun than Earth is.”