Green flash as meteor streaks across sky in Australia

Residents of northeastern Australia were shocked to see the night sky lit up by green lightning as a meteor crashed to Earth on Saturday.

People living in the town of Croydon in rural Queensland reported hearing a loud noise that shook some houses and seeing an explosion of light streak across the sky.

Jim Robertson, whose dashcam captured the “bright light” shortly after 9.20pm local time, described the “horrendous” incident to Australian news station 9News, saying: “There, it was a few seconds.

“We just thought, ‘What the hell is this?’ Are we (invaded)? Was it a plane crash? Was it space junk?

“This thing was so huge and the light was so bright. At the same time, a plane was coming in, so these pilots would have had a great view.

“It was a serendipitous experience that we were lucky enough to get on the dashboard.”

Astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker, of the Australian National University, said the flash was “definitely” caused by a meteor which he estimated would have traveled between 100,000 (62,000 mph) and 150,000 km/h (93,000 mph).

He told 9News, “This was essentially a space rock, probably broken up by an asteroid in the asteroid belt.

“As it hit the earth’s atmosphere, it created this bright flash and spectacle in the sky.

“The blue-green color is iron and nickel on the heating meteor. It breaks, and as it breaks apart, that gives us that flash and sonic boom that people have heard and seen.”

It is not yet known where the meteor landed, but it is believed that the object may have hit the ground somewhere in the Croydon area.