© Google Maps/AMS (screen capture)
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Fire in the SkyS
© Evening Telegraph
Rachel Malcolm sent a picture of the bright line in the darkening night sky to the Telegraph.
She said: "Just saw this in Invergowrie. "It's like something burning up in the atmosphere."
© Rachel Malcolm
Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society, said: "At first sight the trail in the image looks like a sunlit aircraft contrail — a vapour trail — set against a darkening sky. When the sun is low in the sky these stand out, and appear much more prominent than in the middle of the day.
"A meteor trail can be bright and linger, but will typically break up with the movement of air in the upper atmosphere.
"There is an outside chance this shows a trail of that kind, but to be sure, I would need to know how long the exposure was, whether there was a fast moving streak — a shooting star — before the photo was taken, and how long the trail stayed in place."
Comment: The same day, 500 miles south of Scotland, another meteor fireball was captured at dawn in south east London:
Slow-moving fireball photographed over London?
"When I seen the light, it was like flying and the light was pulsing like it was getting brighter and brighter and brighter the further it was getting," he said.
He ran to tell his fiance he thought a plane's wing was on fire, but returned outside to an empty sky.
Then, "We both looked up in the sky and we saw the same thing. It made the same pass, so we started recording it," he said, "It was lighting up, lighting up, lighting up and then it blew up in the same spot the other one did. And then a third one came by."
Noel said, "We were just kind of freaking out, like what is this, what is this?"
Comment: And, as usual... the experts are wrong. Just because it is 'too slow' doesn't mean it cannot have been a meteor. They can and do spiral, change directions and even appear to 'halt'!
© Ellie ThompsonThe 'meteorite' caused tremors and flashes
A 'meteor' crashed into earth causing tremors and a huge "flash of light" in the sky, it has been reported.
The fireball was spotted at Turkey Beach and Emerald in Queensland, Australia, as hundreds of locals took the social media to report their houses shaking and a "burning light" in the sky.
Police received a number of calls from concerned residents in the Gladstone area, reporting tremors in what was initially believed to be an earthquake.
Geoscience Australia has since officially ruled out an earthquake and Higgins Storm Chasing crew said a "meteorite impacted somewhere offshore".
The fireball was spotted as far away as Holland.
The flash of light, believed to be a meteor, was caught on camera at 11.34pm in Ash Vale, Surrey, by the UK Meteor Observation Network.
In the five second clip posted to YouTube, the fireball grows in size, burning brighter by the second before rapidly fizzling out.
An eyewitness said: "I saw it in Oxfordshire! I was fishing and it lit up the whole lake. Incredible.
"It's been seen as far west as South Wales and as far east as Holland!"
UK Meteor Network added: "As reported by the public, we recorded this stunning large fireball from our Ash Vale camera."
Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 100 reports about a meteor fireball seen over Great Britain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany on 23rd September 2016.
© Google Maps/AMS
© Ali OsmanAli Osman caught this strange burning orb over London on camera
Civil engineer Ali, from Erith, south east London, snapped these pictures of the orb, which resembles a massive fireball or flaming meteorite.
The married dad-of-one said: "I woke up with my daughter around 6am.
"I always have a look out the window in the mornings to show my daughter the birds and noticed this strange object in the sky.
"At first I thought it was a plane that leaves a trial behind it but realised quickly it wasn't because it was just hovering.
"There were other planes flying high near the object but the object was above the planes and was stationary.
© Facebook/Mont-Mégantic provincial parkThis meteor was seen as far west as Toronto and as far east as Edmundston, N.B., according to the American Meteor Society.
The phenomenon was captured by a camera atop Quebec's Mont-Mégantic provincial park, about 80 kilometres east of Sherbrooke, Que., around 9:40 p.m. Wednesday.
Sébastien Giguère, scientific co-ordinator at the Mont-Mégantic Astrolab, confirmed Thursday morning that the fireball was indeed a meteor.
A meteor, also called a shooting star, is the light emitted from a meteoroid or an asteroid as it enters the atmosphere.
Meteors like ones seen during Perseid meteor showers are caused by particles that are the same size as a grain of sand or rice, Giguère explained. The bigger the particle, the bigger the meteor.
Last night's meteor was probably caused by something the size of a big rock, Giguère said.
"Hundreds of tonnes of meteorites fall through the sky every day," he said on Radio-Canada's C'est pas trop tôt. "But yesterday, it was nice out and [the meteor] was centred on southern Quebec. That happens once every one or two years, so it's not totally rare, but it doesn't happen every day."
Vicky Boldo, a resident of Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley Que., said she saw the "spectacular sight" while sitting in her hot tub last night.
"It passed directly over us and lit the yard up like a football field — it seemed to be just up over our heads beyond the trees," she said in an email.
© YouTube/Hampshire Astronomical Group (screen capture)
Reported by Neil Morrison and subsequently identified on the Observatory video cameras.
© dcgoalie98 / YouTube
Just before sunset on Thursday, September 8, a meteor is believed to have blazed through the sky over the towns of Essex and Red Oak in North Carolina before ending its flight around Enfield, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS).
As of 11:30am ET, more than 180 people from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia have reported seeing the meteor, AMS says on its website.
Comment: The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received over 35 reports of a meteor fireball observed over France, Switzerland and Germany on 27th September 2016.
NASA space data supports citizens' observations that - meteor fireball activity is increasing dramatically!