Last month, residents of New Zealand were astonished to see big, bright, and green meteors zooming across the skies way above their heads. Those celestial objects were big enough to be classified as fireballs. Scientists might have finally unraveled the secret behind the phenomenon, according to livescience.com.
But the fireballs are not only big; They’re also numerous! Robert Lunsford, who’s a fireball report coordinator at the American Meteor Society, said, as livescience.com quotes:
We have seen a tremendous increase in the number of reports from New Zealand.
It may not be a coincidence that it’s now a lot easier than before to report a fireball. Lunsford also said, as the same source quotes:
The general public in New Zealand is now becoming aware that they can actually report these events through Fireballs Aotearoa.
Jack Baggaley, who is a professor emeritus in physics and astronomy from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, explained as LiveScience.com also quotes:
Fireballs — as were the case observed here — occur lower down, less than 37 miles (60 km) up, and the green color in them is produced by large bodies composed of metallic material such as nickel, iron and magnesium.
Fireballs zooming across the night sky are not very rare events. Last year in November, we shared the news about a meteor igniting the skies over parts of the American state of North Carolina. NASA cameras mounted in the western part of the state, and more than 200 reports from the American Meteor Society confirmed the celestial event.
The “American” meteor was very small, only about the size of a football, meaning that it couldn’t possibly cause significant damage. Even so, it disintegrated in the atmosphere due to air friction. We can all consider ourselves lucky that the Earth’s atmosphere acts as a protective shield against many potential threats coming from space.