Fireball meteor spotted across wide areas of Japan

On Sunday night, a brightly burning meteor descended through the Earth’s atmosphere over Japan.

The fireball was visible for just a few seconds in the early hours of Sunday. Experts believe small fragments of the meteorite might have reached the ground, The Associated Press reports.

Takeshi Inoue, the director of the Akashi Municipal Planetarium, told Japan’s Kyodo news agency (via CBS), “We believe the last burst of light was as bright as the full moon.”

The spectacle drew massive attention on social media outlets.

CBS reports that NHK public television, Japan’s public media organization, stated its weather cameras stationed in the nation’s central prefectures of Aichi and Mie captured the fireball in the southern sky.

The outlet posted this compilation of videos on Twitter on Monday morning:

In addition to NHK and other news outlets, many in western Japan also shared their own videos of the rare sight on their social media accounts.

“The sky went bright for a moment and I felt strange because it couldn’t be lightning,” said one Twitter user who saw the meteor. “I felt the power of the universe!” via CBS.

“That was scary” said another who tweeted a video of the light burst captured while driving.