Elsewhere in the New Zealand capital of Wellington, a burning meteor flashed across the sky on Thursday, with dozens of witnesses saying they saw a bright light and heard a boom as the fireball passed, according to Reuters report.
According to local news outlet TNH1, “cameras from Ledrium, a Chilean telecommunications company, recorded the phenomenon, popularly called a “shooting star." The inhabitants of the city reported hearing the sound of the meteor crossing the atmosphere as if it were a burst of thunder."
Meanwhile in New Zealand, the weather forecaster MetService said on Twitter its radar has a picked up a possible smoke trail of the meteor and geological agency GeoNet said it believed its seismometer had detected its sound-waves at around 1.50 p.m. (0150 GMT) According to Reuters, Mike Cousins was working from home near Wellington when the room lit up with bluey-orange hue. "I ran outside and saw the trail of it and then there was this low rumble, just like at the start of an earthquake," Cousins told Reuters.
Additionally, Alan Gilmore, an astronomer at Canterbury University's Mount John Observatory, told Reuters that a bright meteor coming down through the atmosphere very fast was a rare occurrence over an urban area. "This was glowing very brightly so it must have been quite a big object," said Gilmore. The boom that people heard indicated the meteor had come within 60 km (37 miles) of earth, he said.
(With inputs from Reuters, BBC, TNH1)
