Watch fireball meteor lights up Japan’s night sky in brilliant blue

People on Japan's Kyushu and Shikoku islands were blessed with a spectacular sight when a fireball meteor exploded across the evening sky. The blazing streak glowed bright blue, with Fukuoka Airport’s camera capturing the spectacle on film.

The fiery trail quickly went viral on social media as locals shared videos of the rare event. The meteor appeared just days after a “meteoroid cluster” was spotted in Aomori Prefecture during the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower.

Watch clip here:

Meteor showers and Perseids explained
The Perseids are one of the three major meteor showers and are famed for their fast, brilliant fireballs. They occur when debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. NASA explains that meteoroids are rocks in space ranging from dust grains to small asteroids. When they enter Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, the friction produces glowing trails known as meteors, or “shooting stars.”

NASA estimates around 44 tonnes of meteoritic material fall towards Earth each day. Almost all of it is vaporised in the atmosphere, leaving glowing streaks visible across the night sky. Meteor showers usually appear annually when Earth passes through trails of debris left by comets.