Victorians were given a spectacular light show on Sunday night as a blazing meteor lit up the night before crashing down to earth with a huge bang which rattled homes.
Residents from Bendigo to Ballarat and Melbourne’s outer west flooded social media with eyewitness accounts after a large fireball was spotted in the sky on Sunday just before 8pm.
A Melbourne resident, who was at the intersection of Buckley Street and Milleara Road in East Keilor, 13km from the CBD, mistook the meteor for fireworks.
‘It was so big and bright – magic!’ they wrote on Reddit.
Another shared footage of the extraordinary moment, writing: ‘Seen from around Taylors Lake heading up on the Calder! Thought it was a firework at first.’
‘Saw it out of our window in that exact area. Thought it was a firework,’ a resident echoed.
Other Victorians claimed they felt the impact of the meteor.
Bendigo and Ballarat reported feeling a ‘sonic boom’ that ‘shook the whole house’, on community Facebook pages.
Melbourne residents witnessed a meteor light up the night sky on Sunday (pictured)
Witnesses reported mistaking the bright light (pictured) for fireworks at first
Others were convinced the impact of the meteor felt like a ‘small earthquake’.
‘Saw it in Ballarat,’ a witness wrote online.
‘It was so bright, an orange glow then faded to nothing, looked like it was going so fast!’
Sunday’s meteor is likely to be unrelated to the Perseid meteor shower, although this has yet to be confirmed.
The shower was expected to light up skies between July 17 to August 2, with peak activity forecast between Tuesday and Wednesday.
However, Australians are likely to miss out on the Perseid meteor shower branded the ‘best meteor shower of the year’.
The shower occurs annually as Earth passes through a trail of space dust left behind by comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.
Unfortunately for Aussie space enthusiasts, the best chance to catch a glimpse of the shower is from the Northern Hemisphere.
Victorians reported the impact of the meteor felt like a ‘small earthquake’
Associate professor Michael Brown from Monash University’s school of physics and astronomy told The Age the loud noise reportedly heard by residents makes the meteor crash ‘exciting’.
‘That is unusual and actually quite exciting, as if those reports are accurate, probably what they were hearing was a sonic boom from the meteor,’ Mr Brown.
‘To be able to hear the sonic boom loudly from the ground suggests that quite a big chunk of the meteor was pretty close to the ground.
‘And that possibly means there’s chunks of the meteorite actually made it down to the ground and optimistically, might be found.’
He said it can be difficult to identify a meteor because in rural Victoria the remnants of the crash would be surrounded by lots of other rocks.
