Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Meteorite

A fireball seen shooting through the skies above parts of Ireland on Wednesday evening has been captured on Dublin Bay webcam, passing over Dublin Bay and Dun Laoghaire Harbour. 

The fireball was a meteor, experts have said. The observed portion of the trajectory covered over 300 km.

It appeared high in the sky at Dun Laoghaire for just a few seconds. before 10 pm and appeared to plunge seawards in flashes of light green colours to observers on the south Dublin Bay shoreline. 

The UK Meteor Network said it had received almost 800 reports after the blazing orb that was spotted in the night sky over Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland on Wednesday evening.

Watch the asteroid particle appear top left of frame in the youtube vid below and move right to left as it passes by Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

The UK scientists said the object, which lasted more than 20 seconds, was "definitely a meteor", adding "we are now 100% confident this was a small part of an asteroid".

The network said the end of the meteor's journey was not observed on camera, but that it ended over the north Atlantic Ocean, some 50-100km west of the Isle of Islay, the southern-most island of the Inner Hebrides.

An updated tweet from the organisation read: "It (the meteor) came on an asteroidal orbit and entered the atmosphere at 14.2 km/s.

"The observed portion of the trajectory covered over 300 km.

"If any meteorites did fall, they ended up in the ocean."