Bay of Plenty fireball captured on camera, lights up night sky

• Video of a fireball over Bay of Plenty was captured by David Greig’s security camera.
• Greig said meteors are common, with 10,785 detected in February, but bright fireballs are rare.
• Fireballs Aotearoa’s network of 154 cameras helps track meteor frequency and aims to recover meteorites.

Video of a fireball streaking across the Bay of Plenty night sky has surfaced online.

A post on the Fireballs Aotearoa Facebook page said team member David Greig captured the fireball on one of his Tapo security cameras (Tapo C325WB) from rural Ōpōtiki at 10.49pm on Wednesday.

“The sky and the foreground looks very bright [like daytime] due to the bright moonlight and the very sensitive camera,” the Facebook post said.

“If the sky had been dark, the fireball would have looked even brighter.”

A fireball is a bright meteor that could result in a meteorite falling to the ground.

A meteor is a streak in the sky caused by a meteoroid entering Earth’s atmosphere, usually at more than 70,000km/h. Meteors are sometimes colloquially called shooting stars.

Greig told Sunlive meteors were common and their cameras recorded several thousand events over New Zealand every month, however, bright fireball meteors were less common.

“Our growing network of meteor cameras throughout New Zealand is helping to give us a better idea of the frequency of such events.

“There are now 154 cameras on our network throughout New Zealand and we are always looking for people to host new cameras.”

Greig said there were 10,785 meteors detected across New Zealand in February.

Fireballs Aotearoa Meteor Map Feb 2025. Image / David Greig

“It is interesting to note that our cameras can only detect these meteors during the darkness of night, and only when the sky is clear [or partially clear].

“I would estimate that the true number per month is approximately triple the count shown.”

He said the vast majority of those meteors burned up in the upper atmosphere, between 70km and 100km up.

“The very few meteors that do make it to the ground are then called ‘meteorites’. Our aim is to try to recover these meteorites.”

Greig asked anyone who saw the fireball meteor to submit a report at fireball.nz.imo.net.