Stargazers spot green ‘meteor’ shooting through London’s skies

Did you see a green light flash across the sky last night?

Stargazers said they spotted a ‘meteor’ streak through Britain’s skies on Tuesday. 

One person described seeing a ‘huge fireball’ in the sky over Aldershot, Hampshire, at around 8.10pm yesterday. The green light was captured on dashcam footage.

Another witness reported seeing a ‘very bright bluish green blob’ over Ealing, west London.

A post on Reddit said they first thought it was one of the ‘planes coming and going to Heathrow’ then ‘fireworks’ before thinking the light was meteorological.

‘For reference it was about the same size as the full-ish moon tonight, visible through the clouds, but as a much brighter blue-green color and, again, moving quite fast,’ the post added.

It described the potential meteorite as having a ‘very odd combination of speed, size and brightness’ and said it was not like anything the gazer had seen before.

Though it has not been established what the light was yet, it came as the Draconid meteor shower is set to reach its peak tonight at around 8pm.

The yearly shower is visible until October 10 and its meteors appear as streaks of light when the Earth passes by debris of a comet or an asteroid.

Jessica Lee, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said: ‘The meteor shower is visible from the 6th until the 10th of October this year.’

‘Most of this debris will burn up at a height of around 80km above the ground, so this is not a dangerous event,’ she added.

Last night’s green light was also reportedly seen from Wimbledon and Hampstead Heath in London, alongside sightings from Brighton and Grantham, Lincolnshire.

This came on the same night Brits could see the Harvest supermoon – bigger and brighter than the typical moon and visible from around 6.20pm last night.

It was the first supermoon of the year. The next spectacle is expected in November when the Beaver Moon will rise.

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