Watch the spectacular moment an enormous meteor lights up the skies of Sardinia

sardiniameteor

Footage captured from a dashcam shows a huge flare illuminating the sky.


ClaudiuPorcu via Astro Unisiena/Twitter

According to NASA, 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles hit earth every single year. And roughly once a year Earth’s atmosphere is hit by a car-sized meteor that creates an “impressive fireball”, but burns up before hitting earth.

It’s rare to catch that moment on camera.

But at 20:39 UTC, on the 16th of August in Sardinia, a driver (going by ‘Claudio P’) managed to capture the precise moment a meteor burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. It’s spectacular.

 A few other cameras caught footage of the meteor.

To date the American Meteor Society has logged 93 eye-witness reports of the fireball, from France, Italy and even as far as Tunisia in Africa.