{"id":544774,"date":"2026-07-26T12:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T12:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544774\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T12:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T12:35:09","slug":"bright-object-streaking-across-canterbury-sky-identified-as-meteor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544774\/","title":{"rendered":"Bright object streaking across Canterbury sky identified as meteor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A bright object seen streaking across the Canterbury sky has been identified as a meteor, while another unusual orange streak photographed around the same time was a contrail.<\/p>\n<p>People across Canterbury contacted chrislynchmedia.com on Sunday evening after spotting a bright object moving through the sky, with photographs showing different streaks above the region.<\/p>\n<p>One image captured over the Port Hills showed a bright object with an orange trail moving across the sky.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Wyn Harris, a citizen scientist from Fireballs Aotearoa, which tracks meteors and meteorites across New Zealand, said the object photographed over the Port Hills was a meteor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now know there was a fireball meteor which fell out to sea off the East coast of Canterbury at 5.51pm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, he said a separate photograph showing a long, wavy orange streak while looking west was a contrail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fireball at 5.51pm on the 26th July was seen by a good number of eyewitnesses in Canterbury, east of Christchurch and likely out at sea given we are yet to hear of anyone hearing a sonic boom which indicates the event is close to the witness,\u201d Wyn Harris said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just too early for our camera network to be recording as they come on automatically when it gets a bit darker.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnyone with security camera, dashcam or weather cameras in Canterbury facing east should check the footage between 5.50 and 5.52pm and report to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrislynchmedia.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#7f39160d1a1d1e13130c3e100b1a1e0d101e3f18121e1613511c1012\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> if they have captured this fireball.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA fireball is a large meteor which in turn are also known as \u2018shooting stars\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn average, New Zealand has three to four fireballs large enough to drop a meteorite onto the ground although they can be quite small.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn March 2024, the Fireballs Aotearoa camera network detected a fireball that we calculated might have dropped a meteorite onto the ground near Tekapo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe organised a search and found it within 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Takap\u014d Meteorite was subsequently confirmed as NZ\u2019s 10th recognised meteorite and is now on display in T\u016bhura Otago Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The distinction explains why photographs sent to chrislynchmedia.com appeared to show different shapes in the sky.<\/p>\n<p>The Port Hills image showed a much more concentrated bright object and trail, while the western image showed a longer, twisting orange formation.<\/p>\n<p>The sightings prompted significant interest across Canterbury, with dozens of people contacting chrislynchmedia.com after seeing unusual activity in the evening sky.<\/p>\n<p>Christchurch resident Robert Wells reported seeing what he described as an \u201cawesome shooting star\u201d moving towards the Port Hills.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was really low,\u201d he told chrislynchmedia.com.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt had a bright green tail and orange ball, couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bright object seen streaking across the Canterbury sky has been identified as a meteor, while another unusual&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[373,111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-544774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-featured","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544774","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=544774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}