Meteor Lights Up Night Sky Across New South Wales | 10 News

Social media has lit up across the East Coast tonight after what's believed to be a meteor ripped across the night sky.Sightings have been reported from Canberra all the way to Queensland.Hannah Watt joins us live.Hannah, quite a treat for stargazers tonight.

Yes, Ursula, a rare occasion to spot something like this with your bare eyes.It happened just after 6 .30 with cameras and dash cams capturing what looked like a sudden burst of daylight over the eastern states.The slightly greenish flash was so quick and intense it was visible right across New South Wales, from the heart of Sydney out to Canberra and even north to parts of Queensland.The millisecond glow sparked instant chatter online with witnesses hypothesising of what it could be.from space junk burning up to something a little more mysterious.Right now astrophysicists though are pointing toward a large meteor around 30 to 50 centimetres entering the atmosphere over the New South Wales east coast.

One of the tricks that we know it's a meteor are two things, the colour, so that kind of bluey, tinted green colour, very common in meteors.Meteors have lots of iron and nickel, and when that burns in the sky, it tends to be that.Things like satellites and space junk look a little bit more white or yellow.

So keep your eyes peeled for any more meteor showers, Ursula, as tonight's sky certainly put on quite a show.

I'm sad I missed it.Thank you, Hannah.