Researchers said that it was a green meteor
The incident took place on Wednesday night, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Australia’s Tasmanian coast, where scientists on board the research vessel Investigator got to see a bright green meteor dashing across the sky.
It was seen at 9:21 local time, and streaked actor the sky before disappearing into the clouds over the Tasman Sea. It’s believed to have splashed into the ocean, and was likely going at full speed and brightness before getting snuffed out eternally.
Not the first sighting in Australia
It was successfully captured on camera because the RV Investigator has a 24/7 livestream and the camera was at just the right spot to film the whole thing. CSIRO Voyage Manager John Hooper said that it was an amazing sight to watch, and the meteor’s size and brightness was incredible.
Since the footage is in black and white, we will have to trust their words and believe that it was green. But green meteors aren’t a rare sight, and surprisingly, another green meteor was spotted in the Australian skies – at Northern West Australia to be precise. At that time, Eleanor Sansom, the project manager of the Desert Fireball Network told ScienceAlert that many meteors turn green and then orange as they get deeper.
While a lot can’t be determined from the color alone, the brightness at which it burnt can give us an idea of its size and speed.
CSIRO Astronomer Glen Nagle stated that over 100 tonnes of natural space debris enter our atmosphere every day, but they mostly happen over unpopulated areas like the Southern Ocean. While the idea of meteors coming at us is scary, NASA is keeping tabs on larger asteroid’s that could spell potential danger for us.
(Cover: CSIRO)