A spectacular meteor shower turned night into day across a large swathe of Western Australia at the weekend, witnesses said.
”It lit up the countryside for hundreds of kilometres around the southwest of Western Australia,” astronomer Peter Birch told ABC radio of the meteor flare late on Saturday night.
Residents told the radio station the meteor was accompanied by a thundering sonic boom that shook some buildings.
”All of a sudden the sky lit up, it was as bright as daylight, it was quite unbelievable,” said Helen Bignell.
”I looked up overhead and there was something silver — sort of looked like a silver ball with a trailing reddish green sort of tail … almost like fireworks,” she said, adding that the main ball of light was followed by a second.
”There were two, quite spectacular objects.”
Another resident, who identified himself only as Brent, said he did not even need his flashlight as the object passed.
”I could turn the torch off because the whole sky was just bright purple,” he said.
Birch estimated that the meteor was about the size of a basketball and probably came to earth in the Southern Ocean. – Sapa-AFP