Witnesses stunned as ‘fireball’ meteor lights up Perth skies

Residents in Western Australia have been stunned by a “fireball” meteor that lit up the skies.

The bright fireball passed through the skies about 6am on Sunday over the Central Wheatbelt, producing a brilliant yellow flash and a trail of bright green.

Witnesses were able to catch a glimpse of the early-morning meteor from Perth to the Goldfields, however, experts are yet to determine where it eventually landed.

The Perth Observatory said the astronomical sight was “most likely an iron meteor” which had been “orbiting within the inner Solar System”.

“To shine that brightly, the fireball — technically known as a bolide — would have been about the size of a cricket ball to a basketball,” the observatory said online.

According to Perth Observatory’s Matthew Woods, the meteor would have been travelling between 16 to 60km per second, leaving behind a trail of green as the built-up friction melted.

He told 9News it was “one hell of a meteor”.

“That was very nice … little surprise for Mother’s Day,” he said.

Online, witnesses were dumbfounded by the “spectacular” sight, with some believing it was an aeroplane.

“Never seen anything like it,” one person wrote.

“Thought someone was driving at us with high beams on at first,” said another, who watched it pass overhead from Newdegate.

A resident from Mt Magnet said they initially thought the “huge and burning bright orange-red” light was “the moon until it moved”.

Some thought the meteor was the Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era spacecraft that plunged back to earth more than 50 years after its failed launch to Venus.

However, Curtin University astrophysicist Steven Tingay told the ABC it was unlikely the fallen spacecraft, which likely landed over the Indian Ocean on Saturday, though European and US agencies are yet to confirm its exact location.