The meteor passes the Global Rainbow laser installation in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside. Photograph: Mike Ridley/NNP
A large, fiery meteor streaked through the skies above the UK on Saturday night, shooting from northern Scotland to southern England and provoking numerous concerned calls to the police.
The Kielder Observatory in Northumberland reported the sighting of a "huge fireball" travelling southwards at 9.41pm. In a tweet, the observatory added: "Of 30 years observing the sky #fireball best thing I have ever seen period."
Hundreds of people took to Twitter to report similar sightings across Scotland and the north of England, with many describing a bright fireball with a large tail moving across the sky.
The Met Office tweeted: "Hi all, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite."
Some, however, found the sight alarming. A spokesman for Strathclyde police said the force had been "inundated" with calls about a bright object in the sky across the west of Scotland.
A Durham police spokeswoman said a number of calls came in around 9.45pm from concerned members of the public who had seen a "bright light or a fire in the sky" and believed it might have been an aircraft. "It has been confirmed with air traffic control that there are no incidents of aircraft in difficulty and nothing registered on radar," she said.
Grampian police said reports of people seeing a flare or a bright object with a tail were received from across the region. And Dumfries and Galloway constabulary said numerous calls were made across Annandale and Eskdale.
A force spokesman wrote on Facebook: "A number of reports have been received from the public reporting observing bright lights or what is described as a large ball of fire in the sky. Inquiry has confirmed that this is actually a low level meteor shower."
Air traffic control confirmed there were no concerns and all aircraft were accounted for.
The coastguards also received calls from the public asking if a flare had been used.
Gary Fildes, the director of the Kielder Observatory, said he was with a group of people who were overcome with excitement and wanted to know if it was "going to end life on Earth".
He was hosting a northern lights seminar at the observatory for 40 people when they spotted the fireball for 30-40 seconds.
"We got an incredible view. It was phenomenal," he said. "I was getting questions about what it is and is it going to end life on Earth? It was massively exciting."
Fildes said it would be difficult to determine where the meteor came from. "Trying to nail down the origin of the object will not be easy. It's open to conjecture," he said.
Adrian West, of Meteorwatch, said he spotted the meteor in Berkshire and believed it could have gone down in the Channel or the Bay of Biscay.
He told the BBC: "It had a very bright orange nucleus and a green tail. It was seen by hundreds, maybe thousands of people."
Meteors are particles from space that burn up in a streak of light as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, whereas meteorites are larger objects that survive the trip and reach the surface of our planet.
Dr David Whitehouse, an author and astronomer, said: "Judging by its brightness, it may have been large enough to survive and hit the ground but until people work out its trajectory we won't have any idea where it might have come down."
Whitehouse said the object was probably about the size of a fist and could be the debris of a planet that never properly formed.
"It's a chunk of rock that's probably come from somewhere between Mars and Jupiter and has been in space for thousands of millions of years.
"There are tens of thousands of bits of rock and grains of sand orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Some of it comes out of that orbit and some of it hits the Earth."
The Kielder Observatory in Northumberland reported the sighting of a "huge fireball" travelling southwards at 9.41pm. In a tweet, the observatory added: "Of 30 years observing the sky #fireball best thing I have ever seen period."
Hundreds of people took to Twitter to report similar sightings across Scotland and the north of England, with many describing a bright fireball with a large tail moving across the sky.
The Met Office tweeted: "Hi all, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite."
Some, however, found the sight alarming. A spokesman for Strathclyde police said the force had been "inundated" with calls about a bright object in the sky across the west of Scotland.
A Durham police spokeswoman said a number of calls came in around 9.45pm from concerned members of the public who had seen a "bright light or a fire in the sky" and believed it might have been an aircraft. "It has been confirmed with air traffic control that there are no incidents of aircraft in difficulty and nothing registered on radar," she said.
Grampian police said reports of people seeing a flare or a bright object with a tail were received from across the region. And Dumfries and Galloway constabulary said numerous calls were made across Annandale and Eskdale.
A force spokesman wrote on Facebook: "A number of reports have been received from the public reporting observing bright lights or what is described as a large ball of fire in the sky. Inquiry has confirmed that this is actually a low level meteor shower."
Air traffic control confirmed there were no concerns and all aircraft were accounted for.
The coastguards also received calls from the public asking if a flare had been used.
Gary Fildes, the director of the Kielder Observatory, said he was with a group of people who were overcome with excitement and wanted to know if it was "going to end life on Earth".
He was hosting a northern lights seminar at the observatory for 40 people when they spotted the fireball for 30-40 seconds.
"We got an incredible view. It was phenomenal," he said. "I was getting questions about what it is and is it going to end life on Earth? It was massively exciting."
Fildes said it would be difficult to determine where the meteor came from. "Trying to nail down the origin of the object will not be easy. It's open to conjecture," he said.
Adrian West, of Meteorwatch, said he spotted the meteor in Berkshire and believed it could have gone down in the Channel or the Bay of Biscay.
He told the BBC: "It had a very bright orange nucleus and a green tail. It was seen by hundreds, maybe thousands of people."
Meteors are particles from space that burn up in a streak of light as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, whereas meteorites are larger objects that survive the trip and reach the surface of our planet.
Dr David Whitehouse, an author and astronomer, said: "Judging by its brightness, it may have been large enough to survive and hit the ground but until people work out its trajectory we won't have any idea where it might have come down."
Whitehouse said the object was probably about the size of a fist and could be the debris of a planet that never properly formed.
"It's a chunk of rock that's probably come from somewhere between Mars and Jupiter and has been in space for thousands of millions of years.
"There are tens of thousands of bits of rock and grains of sand orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Some of it comes out of that orbit and some of it hits the Earth."
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