‘Very bright’ meteor witnessed by Scots across the country

Scots who stayed up late witnessed a “very bright” meteor that shot through the sky in the early hours of Thursday.

Social media users reported seeing the meteor at around 12.50am, many of whom shared short clips of the burning object, with people in places such as Stirling, Argyll, and Erskine witnessing the event.

Dr Cyrielle Opitom, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Astronomy, specialises in studying meteors, asteroids and comets.

Dr Opitom, who has worked at the university for just over six years, said that while the event itself wasn’t “anything unusual”, the clear conditions and brightness of the meteor made the event “very impressive”.

She said: “Meteors aren’t anything unusual, they happen all the time during meteor showers.

“But what stands out about this one is that it was very bright, so it could be seen by quite a lot of people and we were lucky that it happened at night.

“A lot of meteors fall during the day, and so we don’t see them, or they fall over the oceans and aren’t seen by anyone.

“But this one could be seen on a clear night in Scotland, which doesn’t happen very often.”

The university owns the renowned Royal Observatory, where astronomers study the skies for phenomena such as meteor showers and other astrological events.

Dr Opitom said: “I haven’t spoken to any of my colleagues at the observatory about it yet, and unfortunately I missed it too as I was asleep at the time, but I saw the videos and it looked very impressive.”

She said the event was most likely sporadic, and that there are no larger meteor showers expected at this time.

She added: “I don’t know exactly how large this one was, but it’s likely it either burned up fully before it hit the ground, or potentially some small pieces may have hit the ground.

“We should keep updated on the meteor as there’s a chance that, if some parts fell to the ground, there might be a campaign to try and retrieve them, but this isn’t very easy in Scotland because if you have a little piece of dark rock that fell somewhere in the Highlands, retrieving it is going to be very difficult. So let’s see if we’re that lucky.”