Australians up early this morning spotted a puzzling celestial display as a bright light streaked across the sky on the eastern coast.
A dashcam video obtained by 2GB shows the light flaring rapidly for several seconds before disappearing.
The radio station received calls from western Sydney to Toowoomba, Queensland, from people who had seen it.
Space expert Brad Tucker from Australian National University said two main clues pointed to the mysterious object being a meteor.
Meteors are chunks of asteroids – solid matter – that are pulled into Earth’s atmosphere and either burn up on entry or strike the world’s surface.
Tucker said the first clue was the object’s apparent speed.
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“Meteors move across the sky in seconds, if that,” he said.
Second was the “green tinge” to the flare that some reported seeing.
He said meteors burned green-blue because of their iron-nickel composition.