A photographer has captured a bright green fireball streaking across a starry sky above an iconic castle and famous Viking raid site in northeast England after a meteorite smashed apart as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
A meteorite exploded over the North Sea off the east coast of England just after midnight local time on Monday (April 13). The space rock, which was traveling at about 20,000 miles per hour (about 32,000 km), was small, probably weighing about 0.4 ounces (12 grams), but it left a big impression, according to the BBC.
At least 230 people from all over the UK, as well as parts of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, reported seeing the fireball to the American Meteor Society, a nonprofit organization that tracks meteor sightings around the world. This streak of light was also captured by multiple doorbell cameras (see below) and lasted up to seven seconds, according to eyewitness reports.
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Photographer Ian Sproat witnessed the fireball from Lindisfarne, also known as ‘Holy Island’. Lindisfarne is a small landmass off the coast of Northumberland that is cut off from the mainland at high tide. It was the site of a brutal Viking raid in 793, when the raiders sacked the monastery and killed or enslaved many of the Christian monks who lived there.
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Sproat and his friends were trying to photograph the starry swath of the Milky Way above Lindisfarne Castle (built in the 16th century, long after the historic raid) when a fireball blazed overhead, allowing them to capture time-lapse images of the meteor.
“We all screamed when it happened,” Sproat told Spaceweather.com. “I was so excited!”
“Fireball Season”
Fireball meteors occur when falling space rocks suddenly break apart due to friction with the atmosphere, releasing energy in the form of bright light. It can have multiple potential shades based on the chemical composition of the rock itself. In this case, the meteor’s green glow is likely the result of magnesium and nickel, according to Spaceweather.com.
In some cases, fragments of these exploding space rocks survive to reach the ground and become meteorites. But even if small fragments of modern meteorites had remained intact (which is unlikely), they would have fallen into the ocean.
Some fireballs can create sonic booms so loud that they can be heard for miles, but no such noise was reported during this event.
Monday’s emerald explosion was one of several similar phenomena seen around the world in recent months, including a space rock crashing through the roofs of some people’s homes. March was particularly eventful. According to an X post on AccuWeather.com, at least 10 large fireballs have occurred in the United States in the last month. This is the highest monthly total since 2012. These include a shell-sized meteor crashing through a roof in Texas and a rare daytime eruption in Ohio.
Last month, a bright fireball exploded over Europe, showering German towns with meteorites, some of which punched holes the size of footballs in the roofs of houses.
It is not unusual to see many fireballs at this time of year. According to NASA, the number of fireballs between February and April, also known as “bolide season,” can increase by 10% to 30% compared to other times of the year. This is likely due to the Earth’s position relative to the sun and other parts of the solar system.
But researchers still don’t fully understand why or how this happens. (A similar trend may occur in the Southern Hemisphere between September and November, but this is more difficult to prove because fewer people witness fireballs.)
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