A spectacular fireball meteor streaked across British skies on Sunday night, captivating observers across the country. The meteor was spotted shortly before 10pm and remained visible for approximately seven seconds, with doorbell and security cameras capturing the event in locations including Manchester, Cardiff, Honiton, Bath, Midsomer Norton, and Milton Keynes.
The UK meteor network, a group of amateur astronomers monitoring the skies since 2012, confirmed the sighting as a fireball—an exceptionally bright meteor. In a statement on Twitter, the network described it as a "slow moving meteor with clearly visible fragmentation." Fireballs are defined by the American Meteor Society as meteors with a magnitude of -4, comparable to the brightness of Venus, though they can occasionally be seen in daylight.
Meteors are fragments of space matter that burn up upon entering Earth's atmosphere. While thousands of fireball-magnitude meteors occur daily, most go unnoticed as they fall over oceans or remote areas. The UK meteor network reported that over 120 people had logged sightings of Sunday night's event.
Social media users shared their awe, with one describing the fireball as starting like a bright star or plane before growing larger and faster, culminating in a "huge flash" and a "massive tail of orange sparks." Others indulged in lighthearted speculation, joking about aliens, referencing films like Superman and War of the Worlds, or suggesting the meteor was retaliation for NASA's Perseverance rover landing on Mars.
