Chile night sky lights up with meteors

A meteor shower was caught on camera passing through the night sky over Chile's capital city Santiago. According to a BBC report, academics from Concepcion University affirmed that the phenomenon, captured on July 7, was a small body of rock which burned up after entering the Earth's atmosphere.

The meteor passed through the sky emitting a huge flashlight above the Santiago city. Authorities cited in local media reports said that the meteor broke down into several parts before vanishing in the Andes region.

The residents of the city heard the sound of the meteor passing through the atmosphere as a loud burst of thunder, as reported by TNH1, a Brazilian media outlet . Apart from this, the astronomer Juan Carlos Beamin, from the Chilean Astronomy Foundation, said that the meteor passed through Santiago is called “T12.cl.”.


Meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere, burns up in the thick Earth's atmosphere and this produces lights in the sky due to friction with air. This was the reason behind shining of the meteor in the sky said Beamin. The meteor entered the Earth at a speed of ten thousand kilometers per hour Beamin said.

Alan Gilmore, an astronomer at Canterbury University's Mount John Observatory, expressed that a meteor coming down the atmosphere at a high speed over an urban area was a rare event. He said that it was glowing very brightly so it might have been a big object. Gilmore also said that the boom sound that inhabitants heard was proof that the meteor had come from within 60 km of Earth.