Meteorites spotted flaming across the sky in stunning moments caught on camera – WATCH

The footage from Asia Wire shows six different sightings of meteorites flaming across the sky. One clip from a car driving on a motorway shows bright meteorites suddenly blaze across the night sky before disappearing. The inhabitants of the car seem to be in shock, speaking in a different language.

Three other clips show similar situations with meteorites flying over cars and roads.

NASA has already confirmed that asteroids “as big as cars” are entering Earth’s atmosphere every year and turning into “spectacular fireballs”.

An asteroid is a small rocky object that orbits the Sun.

A meteor is what happens when a meteoroid – a small piece of an asteroid or comet – burns up upon entering Earth’s atmosphere, creating a streak of light in the sky.

READ MORE: Asteroid shock: NASA discovery means humans can survive in space

These are usually called shooting stars.

More than 500 meteorites reach the surface of the planet yearly.

Scientists have begun to take the likelihood of asteroids hitting Earth again more seriously because of the Yarkovsky effect.

PhD Meteorite specialist, Helena Bates, explained: “The Yarkovsky effect is basically when the Sun heats up one side of the rotating body so the asteroid is rotating as it orbits the Sun.”

These asteroids can sometimes be in the solar system absorbing Sun for billions of years. Scientists have discovered that this sometimes makes big differences to their trajectories.

Ms Bates added: “Some of the asteroids that are in the asteroid belt can be deflected so much that they come onto Earth, crossing orbits.

“These are the ones that are dangerous to us because if they’re crossing Earth’s orbit there is a very very small chance that Earth might be there when they’re crossing that orbit.

“It’s actually one of the focuses of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which is a sample return mission.”

The space agency’s main goal for the mission is to obtain a sample of a near-Earth asteroid, and return the sample for a detailed analysis. It was launched in September 2016.

source: express.co.uk