Latest news with #AndyMcNeill
Telegraph
04-07-2025
- Science
- Telegraph
Meteor pieces may have landed in Scotland
The remnants of a meteor that lit up British skies on Thursday may have landed in Scotland. The orange glowing rock streaked across the sky north of the border shortly after midnight. Experts said pieces of the small meteor, which originated from between Mars and Jupiter, could have landed between two Highland lochs. UK Meteor Network (UKMON) said it may have scattered debris between the lochs Treig and Etricht, to the east of Fort William. The group added that it was descending when it was sighted at a speed of approximately 12,427mph. It may also have landed near Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the country. The last meteorite found on British soil was in Winchcombe, Devon, in February 2021, which was the first in 30 years. The first piece of that meteor was discovered on a driveway and later found to contain extra-terrestrial water that closely resembled Earth's oceans. Shocked onlookers were so surprised by the meteor sighting over Scotland that they called the emergency services. The Coastguard said one caller had alerted them to 'unidentified lights' over the Tay Road Bridge in Dundee shortly after 1am. 'Broughty Ferry lifeboat was called to investigate alongside Dundee Coastguard Rescue Team and with nothing untoward found, the search was stood down,' a spokesman said. 'The sighting was believed to have been related to a meteorite shower reported across parts of the UK.' Mistaken for a missile Andy McNeill, who saw the meteor overhead in Appin, Argyll and Bute, told BBC News: 'There was a bright flash over the house which also caused the Wi-Fi to reset, and then maybe 20 to 30 seconds later an explosive bang. 'There was also contrail in the sky, striking broadly east to west.' Ringold Abolins, a lorry driver from Merseyside, said he thought the meteor was a 'missile' when he saw it while driving on the M74 to Glasgow. 'It burned out in two to four seconds. It was so quick and [there] was [a] small green line behind,' he said. 'I thought in [the] first moment it was a kind of rocket or missile.'
Metro
03-07-2025
- Metro
Watch meteor blaze across the sky above Scotland and explode 'like a rocket'
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Look, up in the sky! Is it a, er, plane crashing? A bomb? An eerie orange ball of light? No, it was a meteorite. For a few brief moments today, a bright fireball lit up the midnight skies above Scotland. The meteor was spotted streaking above Glasgow, Argyll and Bute and as far northwest as the Outer Hebrides at about 12.50am today. The glowing object was even spotted zooming above Edinburgh Airport. ☄️| Did anyone else catch that meteor last night?Our CCTV cameras caught glimpses of it above the should we say air-space? — Edinburgh Airport (@EDI_Airport) July 3, 2025 Meteors are rocks from the asteroid belt that sometimes travel millions of miles through deep space and enter the Earth's atmosphere with a bang. Their high velocity means that these rocks, even ones no smaller than a walnut, generate a fireball and can cause a sonic boom when they break. Andy McNeill, who saw the event in Appin, told the BBC: 'There was a bright flash over the house which also caused the Wi-Fi to reset, and then maybe 20 to 30 seconds later an explosive bang. 'There was also contrail in the sky, striking broadly east to west.' Merseyside lorry driver Ringolds Abolins told the broadcaster that, for a minute, he thought the meteor was a 'rocket or missile'. 'It burned out in two to four seconds. It was so quick and was a small green line behind,' he added. Others on social media said the boom of the meteor was akin to an 'earthquake', a 'lightning bolt' or a 'sonic boom'. The sighting comes only days ahead of the Delta Aquarid meteor shower, also known as the Southern Delta Aquariids, which peaks around mid-July. As beautiful as these celestial fireworks displays are, what you're usually seeing are the leftovers of a comet – a filthy snowball that leaves behind a trail of rocks and ice. When the Earth passes through this cosmic waste, the debris burns up and creates a dazzling display. If a meteor is exceptionally bright, it's called a bolide, which is a cosmic fireball that explodes in an intense flash with clear fragmentation. More Trending If one survives a buffeting by our atmosphere and crashes into the ground, it's a meteorite. These tend to be about the size of a human fist, a far cry from the sometimes football field-size rock they once were. Alfredo Carpineti, an astrophysicist and science writer for IFLScience, told Metro it would be tricky to estimate how large today's meteor was 'But if it was caught by camera on the UK Fireball Alliance,' he added, referring to the network of cameras that capture the objects as they enter the atmosphere, 'there might be a chance to find some fragments.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: 'My second film took a decade to make and is not your average period drama' MORE: Human leg washes up on beach 80 miles from missing man's body MORE: Trump says he will 'look' at deporting Musk and 'might have to put DOGE on' him
