The meteor protrudes like fireworks over the UK skyline at night

LONDON – It was short as much as it was bright. For seven seconds, people across Britain who had turned their eyes short before 10 pm were treated to a fireball meteor spectacle illuminating the sky.

A witness on Twitter described it as a “colossal flash”. This “burst into a huge orange tail trailing like giant fireworks.”

CCTV footage across England at places such as Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire and Solihull showed the meteorite sparkling brighter and brighter as it was twinkling in the sky before disintegrating.

A bright flash of light emanates like an object in space – from something as small as a grain of sand to a gigantic giant like an asteroid – that passes through Earth’s atmosphere and begins to burn.

While millions of people may “wish for a star” when they see an extraordinary light show in the sky, they actually desire a meteor. If something survives the flight and lands on Earth, it is known as a meteor.

Richard Casserek, co-founder of the British Meteor Network, a group of meteorite watchers, said their cameras detected the meteorite at 9:54 pm in Wiltshire, England.

“We think it’s a piece of a comet or something more precise, like an asteroid hitting the atmosphere,” he said.

In this case, he said, the fireball appeared to move slowly, meaning it had been visible for longer in the sky. Some people reported hearing a sonic boom, indicating that a relatively large object was moving at high speed as it approached the ground.

“In the second half of the trip, we saw various pieces fall off,” he said, and some meteorites might have survived.

Mr Kacerek said hundreds of people from all over England and the far north of Scotland and Northern Ireland have reported meteorite sightings to the network.

For amateur astronomers, the sight of a meteorite piercing the sky isn’t particularly rare: about three or four appear each year.

However, at this time of year, a full moon makes meteorites more difficult to see, says Kaserek. “This was an exception. It was a very bright meteor that beat the brightness of the moon. “

For starters, the meteor was a pleasant surprise.

“It is always an extraordinary, once in a lifetime event to see a very bright fireball unless it is like us and is looking at it and looking for it,” said Mr. Kacerek. For casual witnesses, seeing something like this is definitely one of the highlights.