{"id":268006,"date":"2026-02-04T23:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T23:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/268006\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T23:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T23:37:10","slug":"people-across-north-island-report-second-possible-meteor-sighting-within-a-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/268006\/","title":{"rendered":"People across North Island report second possible meteor sighting within a week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People across the North Island are reporting possible sightings of a meteor.<\/p>\n<p>Social media users, including one in Kaitaia, have shared videos of or reported seeing a bright flash light up the sky in the early hours of Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Te Whatu Stardome astronomer Josh Aoraki said he had received at least a dozen reports of the event, which appeared to be similar to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/585554\/bright-shooting-star-delights-wellingtonians\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">meteor in Wellington<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n<p>He said a meteor or &#8220;shooting star&#8221; was fairly common but rare to see.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4JTY2YC_Greenflash3_PredictWind_jpg.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"596\" alt=\"A bright green flash spotted over Wellington on Friday 30 January, at 11:25pm, had some people asking if it was a meteor.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nAstronomer Josh Aoraki says the event appears to have been similar to the meteor in Wellington last week (pictured here).<br \/>\nPhoto: Supplied\/ PredictWind.com\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s usually a small point of light moving fast over the sky.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From the reports today, it sounds like it was what&#8217;s called a fireball, which usually moves a bit slower and is a lot brighter. Often you can see an object breaking up and flashing with light, and they have a distinct green hue, very different from a satellite or a comet.<\/p>\n<p>He said that while these meteors were common occurrences, it was rare to see one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Meteors themselves are not rare. Astronomers estimate that about 100 tonnes of debris, which is essentially stuff from space, falls to Earth every day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rarity is actually seeing them because we don&#8217;t usually get very bright ones. Most happen over the ocean, so to see it over a populated area is very rare.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4JTOROQ_Screenshot_2026_02_05_114003_png.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"699\" alt=\"A social media user in Kaitaia reported a bright flash lighting up the sky in the early hours of Thursday morning on 5 February 2026.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nA social media user in Kaitaia reported a bright flash lighting up the sky in the early hours of Thursday morning.<br \/>\nPhoto: Supplied \/ Screenshot\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s luck we&#8217;ve had two really bright ones recently.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said expected the meteor could have been seen from several areas across the North Island.<\/p>\n<p>Stardome was working to confirm the sightings and it was possible, if it was big enough, that a meteorite could have hit land, Aoraki said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People across the North Island are reporting possible sightings of a meteor. Social media users, including one in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-268006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}