See it: Basketball-sized meteor lights up Western Australia night sky
Some believed the Mother's Day meteor was related to the Soviet spacecraft that re-entered Earth's atmosphere on Saturday. However, the two space objects were unrelated.
Fireball lights up West Australia sky
Dash camera video captured in Coolgardie, Australia shows a bright fireball, known as a bolide, crashing through the night sky.
COOLGARDIE, Aus. – A Mother's Day meteor seen shooting across the night sky on Sunday surprised early risers in Western Australia who witnessed the bright fireball, known as a bolide.
Brian Robbins's dash camera video above shows the meteor lighting up the sky above the highway about 30 seconds into the video. The driver said he thought it might have been lightning at first.
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Astronomers with the Perth Observatory estimated the meteor was about the size of a basketball when it entered Earth's atmosphere. The fireball was spotted just before 6 a.m. local time, before sunrise, creating a bright green glow in the sky.
A bright meteor, known as a bolide, crashes across the sky in Australia on May 11, 2025. (Brian Robbins, G&B Haulage via Storyful / FOX Weather)
"It’s most likely an iron meteor that’s been orbiting within the inner Solar System," Perth Observatory wrote.
A fireball meteor is considered a bolide when the explosion is nearly as bright as Venus in the morning or evening sky.
Hundreds of observations of the fireball came pouring in on Sunday morning, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Some believed the meteor was related to the Soviet spacecraft that re-entered Earth's atmosphere on Saturday. However, the two space objects were unrelated. The 53-year-old spacecraft, known as Kosmos 482, fell back to Earth around 2 a.m. Saturday.