A CHESTER resident has captured the moment a meteor fell across the city's night-time sky on Sunday (February 28).

The spectacular footage was captured at 9.54pm, at the point when the fireball, believed to have been a small piece of an asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere, flew over the city.

The footage was captured by Chester resident Neil Cooper, aka Scoopz on Twitter, on a camera which was filming at the time.

The fireball could be seen from Ireland to the Netherlands and sent a sonic boom across southern England, according to scientists from the UK Fireball Alliance (UKFall), which is led by staff at the Natural History Museum.

“The video recordings tell us its speed was about 30,000 miles per hour, which is too fast for it to be human-made ‘space junk’, so it’s not an old rocket or satellite,” said UKFall’s Dr Ashley King.

“The videos also allowed us to reconstruct its original orbit around the sun. In this case, the orbit was like an asteroid’s.

“This particular piece of asteroid spent most of its orbit between Mars and Jupiter, though sometimes got closer to the Sun than Earth is.”

UKFall said though the meteor fragmented in the atmosphere, it is likely “a few fragments” reached the ground.

“If you do find a meteorite on the ground, ideally photograph it in place, note the location using your phone GPS, don’t touch it with a magnet, and, if you can, avoid touching it with your hands,” said Dr Katherine Joy of the University of Manchester.

  • Did you spot the meteor on Sunday night? Send pictures or videos to news@chesterstandard.co.uk .