Meteor over Omsk
© CENMotorists were given an extraordinary experience as the meteor blazed across the sky.
Motorists in the city of Omsk in Siberia were treated to the rare phenomenon as the falling space rock crashed to earth. The meteor, which appeared in the Omsk Oblast, appeared to be a massive fireball and was visible for miles. However experts say the flaring object was actually probably small enough to fit in your pocket.

Vladimir Krupko, head of the local planetarium, said: "Most likely it was a small meteorite, the size of a walnut.

"Since it was flying up high in the air, it was visible from other cities as well.

"When it entered the atmosphere it caught fire at about 120 kilometres (74.5 miles) above the ground, and by the time it was 40-60 kilometres (25-37 miles) above the ground the fire had gone out."

Despite there being plenty of larger objects whizzing around our solar system, no large meteorites, which are debris from a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, are expected for at least 100 years, Mr Krupko said.

He added: "There are 3,000 meteorites close to the surface of the Earth, some of them are several kilometres in size.

"Most of them pass on the other side of the orbit of the Moon. We are keeping an eye on them!"

A Siberian city witnessed a once in a lifetime experience in December as a meteor turned night into day as it exploded in the sky. Nikolay Soldatov, a local resident, said the exploding meteor could be seen for about four seconds as it "emitted a cold light like a fluorescent lamp".

He said: "I saw that it was starting to brighten fast. The flash was really bright.

"It wasn't blinding, but it was still bright. I looked up and... above the city hospital there was a meteor."

Meanwhile, Sergey Isaykin said that despite it triggering car alarms across the city, they were not scared as they quickly realised it was a meteor exploding.

He said: "It was very beautiful. You don't see this every day.

"But we weren't scared as we instantly understood that it was something like [what happened] in Chelyabinsk three years ago."

The explosion was best visible in the town of Sayanogorsk and about 30 seconds after burning out across the sky, a loud bang was heard.