Tokyo:
A fireball spotted falling from the evening sky more than components of western and central Japan has lit up social media, with customers sharing photos of the unusually vibrant shooting star.
Local media stated the fireball was believed to be a bolide, an exceptionally vibrant meteor that explodes in the atmosphere.
“We believe the last burst of light was as bright as the full moon,” Takeshi Inoue, director of the Akashi Municipal Planetarium, told Kyodo news agency.
The fireball was visible for just a handful of seconds in the early hours of Sunday, but was caught on cameras owned by national broadcaster NHK — which usually capture earthquake activity rather than extraterrestrial light shows.
“Fireball observed over Japan” – what is @SeenConnors up to? Just a handful of days there and currently making difficulty with his football?! pic.twitter.com/WVCxPEpV9A
— The UX CTO (Sylvain Reiter) (@sylvainreiter) November 29, 2020
“The sky went bright for a moment and I felt strange because it couldn’t be lightning,” stated 1 Twitter user who saw the fireball. “I felt the power of the universe!”
“Was that a fireball? I thought it was the end of the world…” stated a different, tweeting a video of the meteor captured even though driving.
A similarly vibrant shooting star was spotted more than Tokyo in July and later identified as a meteor, fragments of which had been identified in neighbouring Chiba prefecture.
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