Second huge fireball meteor seen blazing through skies over Doncaster

Sightings of the celestal fireball were reported all over the UK on Saturday night, with several people in Doncaster spotting it as it blazed a trail through the sky.

More than 250 people across the UK reported sightings of the space rock to the International Meteor Organisation.

The UK Meteor Network shared pictures of the fireball which was seen at around 6.48pm.

The UK Fireball Network said it was travelling at fast speeds of 31.7 kilometres per second.

“Last night’s fireball seen over Scotland and England was a meteoroid from the outer main asteroid belt,” the network said on Twitter.

“It was unusual as its orbit took it past Mercury, which explains why it came in so fast. Sadly, no meteorites survived, it burnt up 38km up.”

Meteors are pieces of debris from space that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, causing a bright streak across the skies and appearing as "shooting stars".

Earlier this month, a bright orange meteor was spotted by several people over Doncaster, with Hatfield stargazer Anthea Brown among them.

She said: "I wonder if anyone else saw this in the sky?

“I had just come home to Hatfield in the car, and as the sky was clear I decided to do a bit of star gazing before I went in the house.

“At approximately 21.40 in the south western sky I saw a flash with a near horizontal trajectory.

"It lasted less than a second and it was orange. At first I thought it was a firework, but there was no sound and the flight was wrong for a firework rocket. I realised that it was probably a meteor.”

Anthea reported the sighting to UK meteor reporting website UKMON – where she discovered dozens of other reports, photos and videos of the fireball.

She said: “My observation has been turned into a report as there seems to be 35 other reports of the same thing.”

Meteors are solid pieces of space debris which heat up and burn as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere.