A brilliant green meteor as bright as a "welding spark" has given the West a spectacular light show, but astronomers are divided about its origins.
Witnesses described watching the "fireball" hurtle over England and Wales in a northerly direction at around 9.45pm on Wednesday.
Many people used Twitter to express their delight and wonderment at seeing the heavenly body.
Samuel Burton, of Bath, asked: "Did anyone else just see that crazy meteorite? Was in the sky for a solid couple of seconds! Wow!"
Pete Berryman of Malmesbury said he spotted it out of the corner of his eye while watching television with his partner, Fiona, and son, Louis, aged 12.
"I saw this bright green spark, it was like a welding spark, going through the sky. It clearly wasn't a normal shooting star. Initially I thought it was a firework, but it was too bright. I saw it for about three to four seconds, it was heading towards Hullavington. I told my son and partner I'd seen it and they went outside but of course it had gone and they just assumed I was bonkers. It was great to see others had seen it too."
Some suggested the celestial body may have come from Halley's Comet while others insisted it was more likely to have drifted into the Earth's atmosphere from the asteroid belt.
Experts offered similarly conflicting views over the meteor's dimensions.
Suzy Buttress, of Basingstoke in Hampshire, said she spotted the celestial body while driving along the M3.
She wrote on Twitter: "I have just seen the biggest meteor in my life! It was also noticeably green, and appeared very large compared to regular meteors I've seen."
Space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock said the meteor was likely to have been part of the Eta Aquarids, the debris left by Halley's Comet. The Earth passes through this dust twice a year. She said the shooting star, though unusually large, would probably have been no bigger than a closed fist and would have travelled at speeds of around 150,000mph.
Its green or blue colour suggested there was copper in the meteor, Dr Aderin-Pocock said, adding that star-gazers could expect to see further meteors – around ten an hour – streaking through the sky until May 20.
But Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said the rock was more likely to have come from the asteroid belt.
"It was probably a fairly hefty chunk of rock, maybe football-sized, up to a few metres in size," he said.
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