A bright object, initially appearing to be a meteorite, lit up the skies over Mexico's capital at about 3am on Wednesday, stretching over plains, volcanoes and small towns.
Videos of a ball of fire shooting over the Latin American country and dissolving in a burst of light over Mexico City struck awe in many — and quickly became the fuel for memes circulating on social media.
"No, the meteorite that exploded last night isn't an excuse to talk to your ex," someone wrote on X, over a GIF of dinosaurs walking through a meteorite shower.
Soon, photographs of the fireball edited with cartoon characters and political jokes flooded the Internet.
Scientists across Mexico said that the object that rocketed across the skies was a bolide — the fiery phenomenon of a rock from space burning up completely in the atmosphere.
Ronny Reyes New York Post Sun, 13 Apr 2025 17:35 UTC
The moment the object smashed through the roof was captured on surveillence footage.
They've seen all kinds of wrecks, but this one may be out of this world.
A New Jersey auto body shop owner was left stunned after a mysterious object fell from the sky and crashed through the ceiling with a large and fiery bang.
Surveillance videos from inside S&L Automotive and surrounding homes in Magnolia reveal the moment an object hits the roof of the car shop at around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, with a fireball bursting through the ceiling and exploding inside, ABC 6 reported.
"You eventually see a giant fireball come through the ceiling, and everything comes flying down. The roof with it," said shop owner Sebastian Leonardo.
A very bright greenish bolide crossed the skies of all of Italy at around 9:00 pm today, April 12, 2025. We have received many reports of sightings (from north to south of Italy).
Don't panic, because it is a so-called bolide, that is, blocks of rocky or ferrous material (a brighter meteor) or, in rare cases, the fragment (or fragments) of an object of anthropogenic origin. The color is given by the chemical composition (if it were confirmed to be green, today's would have a prevalence of magnesium).
With reference to the rocky or ferrous material, a bolide is a meteor with a high brightness: it is a term commonly used but it is not scientific, since astronomers do not catalog meteors based on their brightness.
Here is the video taken by our friends at AstroGargano :
We received 67 reports about a fireball seen over IA, IL, Iowa, Kansas, KS, Minnesota, Missouri, MN, MO, Nebraska, SD, South Dakota, WI and Wisconsin on Tuesday, April 8th 2025 around 10:22 UT.
For this event, we received 4 videos and one photo.
"Newly-discovered Comet SWAN25F is brightening nicely as it approaches the sun," reports Mike Olason, who sends these pictures from Tucson, Arizona. "On the morning of April 6th, the comet was magnitude 8.4 with a bright green 3' wide coma and a thin tail that extended well beyond my field of view."
The comet is named after the SWAN camera onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Australian amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo noticed the comet in online images. SWAN is a special camera that maps hydrogen in the solar wind, which suggests this comet may be rich in the element.
We received 82 reports about a fireball seen over Aargau, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Île-de-France, Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Centre-Val de Loire, England, Grand Est, Hauts-de-France, Hessen, Limburg, Lombardia, Luxembourg, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Normandie, Oberösterreich and Région W on Sunday, April 6th 2025 around 00:31 UT.
For this event, we received 2 videos and 3 photos.
We received 45 reports about a fireball seen over Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Brandenburg, Drenthe, Gelderland, Hauts-de-France, Hessen, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen on Saturday, April 5th 2025 around 22:00 UT.
Comment: The fireball was also seen in Austria and other countries.