{"id":50008,"date":"2025-08-07T09:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T09:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/50008\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T09:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T09:05:10","slug":"perth-observatorys-matt-wood-confirms-stony-iron-meteorite-lit-up-sky-across-wa-on-wednesday-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/50008\/","title":{"rendered":"Perth Observatory\u2019s Matt Wood confirms stony iron Meteorite lit up sky across WA on Wednesday night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">A cosmic spectacle illuminated the night sky across WA on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">A meteorite travelled through the atmosphere just after 9.30pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">The Perth Observatory confirmed the meteor \u201cslammed into our atmosphere at a mind-blowing 34km per second\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">WATCH THE METEORITE VISION IN THE PLAYER ABOVE<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cThis object was a fragile cometary fragment, a piece of icy, dusty debris left over from the early stages of the Solar System,\u201d the Observatory posted to Facebook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cWhen these objects enter Earth\u2019s atmosphere, they are called meteors. If they\u2019re especially bright, like this one, they\u2019re often referred to as fireballs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cAs it hit our atmosphere, it began to heat up and break apart, producing a series of dazzling flashes. The entire light show ended at an altitude of 69 km, with the object destroyed; no fragments reached the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ee3ad16f8fe5dc4155e80c7174aac20da1a88f9a.jpg\" alt=\"Matt Woods, from the Perth Observatory, said the meteor was travelling anywhere between 16 to 50km per second.\u00a0\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\"\/>Camera IconMatt Woods, from the Perth Observatory, said the meteor was travelling anywhere between 16 to 50km per second.\u00a0 Credit: Calvin Borowski\/Calvin Borowski<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Curious sky gazers eager to know what they had seen took to Facebook just after 9.30pm to talk about the bright light they saw zoom through the sky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">West Aussies shared their footage and experiences from different vantage points across the State as they watched on in awe of the spectacular sight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cBig green meteor with a firey front just lit up the sky over Halls Head Anyone else see it?\u201d one social media user wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cWe saw it. It was beautiful,\u201d someone else commented.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cSaw the flash in Serpentine,\u201d another wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">Just last month, West Aussie witnessed something that resembled a fireball zooming across Perth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">The observatory suggested the stunning event was likely space junk, which is debris from rockets or satellites that are no longer orbiting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9cqv6l-StyledPNParagraph e8utp6u0\">\u201cUnfortunately, the fireball seen over Perth a few moments ago isn\u2019t Optus Prime or Bumblebee, it does look like space junk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cosmic spectacle illuminated the night sky across WA on Wednesday night. A meteorite travelled through the atmosphere&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-50008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}