Strange Blue Fireball Visible In The Night Skies Over Sweden

– A strange blue fireball was visible in night skies over Eastern Sweden on Monday this week.

A bright flash was followed by a loud bang and many alarmed people called the newspapers to find out what was happening. The fireball was spotted over several cities, including Uppsala, Stockholm and Örebro on March 20, 2017.

“We thought it was an earthquake. People say they have seen a very bright light in the sky.

We wondered if there was an explosion because the whole house was shaking,” Christoffer Brasch, who lives in Vaxholm says.

According to the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University people witnessed a bolide, a very bright meteor that explodes in the atmosphere.

In most cases, bolides burn up at an altitude of 30-50 kilometres, but this one may have made it as far as 25 kilometres from the Earth’s surface.

Eric Stempels who is in charge of the Swedish Allsky Meteor Network project explained that similar events happen a few times a year, but they mostly go unnoticed.

“Because it can happen during the day, when it is cloudy or far from populated areas, these events usually don’t get much attention,” he said, adding that this one fell in the north-eastern Uppland region,” Stempels said.

It is estimated the bolid was between the size of “a fist and a football”.

You may also like...