Meteor Fireball Streaks Over Siberian Night Sky
Stunned locals have captured a glowing green fireball flying over the Russian city of Novosibirsk in Western Siberia. The phenomenon has created a buzz on social media and baffled scientists.
The flyby was spotted by locals in several areas of the city on Tuesday morning when the sky was still dark and luckily clear. Videos showing the green glowing meteor quickly started circulating on Russian social network Vkontakte and on YouTube.
The local planetarium stepped in, asking those who witnessed and filmed the event to send them all the visuals they had. Scientists say it was likely a bolide – an extremely bright meteor that explodes in the Earth’s atmosphere and has an iconic dazzling tail.
But the astronomers have been somewhat bewildered by the appearance of this phenomenon, as there are currently no active meteor showers.
“It can be either the tail of a [Leonid] meteor shower or a lone meteor, we need to find out,” deputy director of local planetarium told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The bolide is believed to have burned in the atmosphere and no traces of space rocks were found on the ground. Dozens of meteors fly over us every year, but most of them go unnoticed. This time Siberia was lucky to see the stunning space object streaking by above.
RT
