SOME lucky citizens were on Tuesday night treated to what appeared to be a meteor blazing its way into Earth's atmosphere, looking much like a comet as it streaked across the sky.
The fireball appeared to have been visible mostly to those living in Central and Northern Trinidad and a number of people yesterday posted video clips of the celestial activity, accompanied by exclamations of wonder.
According to the Trinidad and Tobago Weather Centre, most people said the event took place between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.
One video, recorded from a vehicle, also showed two smaller, round lights that at first appeared to be following the meteor, but many surmised that these were generated by the lens of the camera.
While "shooting stars" are commonly spotted, they are usually much smaller and burn up quickly.
The much larger object making its way across the local sky elicited a variety of comments.
Some were extremely pleased at the opportunity, while others joked that the object may have been the reviled "soucouyant" of local lore, an alleged vampire fabled to be an older woman who sheds her skin at night to stalk her victims.
Comment: Clearly, there are far more asteroids/comets in the inner solar system these days. This is obviously connected with why meteor fireball events have gone way up. And yet the media still refuses to touch this story!
What's it gonna take people? Kersplat??
Just last week, there were SIXTEEN fly-bys of NEOs:
Asteroid swarm: SEVEN asteroids to zoom past Earth today! NINE more later this week...
Incoming! ANOTHER asteroid - discovered just today - to make fly-by this week