Did you see the meteor?
Send in your photos and tell us what you saw
KEY POINTS:
A shining light in the sky off the west coast of New Zealand overnight is believed to have been a meteor.
Christchurch police received reports from Hokitika to Nelson of a light in the sky between 11pm and midnight. Wanganui police received three calls of a bright light out at sea. Two people who called Wanganui police reported a white light.
Police initially thought it was a flare but then reports came in from down the west coast of the country.
There were no reports of anything hitting the ground.
Radio New Zealand reported that one person saw a ball of light entering the atmosphere and flaming out. An Air New Zealand pilot also witnessed the incident.
Katrina Goodwin lives Te Mata, outside of Raglan, and said she saw a bright light, about four times the size of Venus, plummet to the earth.
Ms Goodwin said she was about to go to bed when she saw the light over the ocean.
"It was like a giant shooting star. It was really fast and shot down to the ground," she said.
- NZPA
Readers' sightings
We were travelling back from skiing at Rainbow, Nelson Lakes last night Wed 9TH July
The sky was cystal clear after a fantastically sunny day, when between 6.30pm and 6.45pm we saw a very bright light at quite a low angle in the Eastern sky. It was 3 to 4 times brighter than the brightest star and looked that much larger too. My wife said whatever is that, I driving glanced across and said it must be the space station to be that large and bright. I pulled the car in to have a better look a minute later, but it had dimmed in brightness to a very bright star by then.
I heard the report on One News this morning and the time was much later. Thought you might like our report.
- PG
I couldn't believe when I heard this on the radio. On Tuesday night I saw a similar thing but I was on my way home in Sandringham. It was about 11pm and I saw what I thought at first was a ball of light coming down from fireworks, but then I didn't hear any bang and it was too big to be a fireworks spark, so then I thought it was a flare but it didn't stay up for long enough. I thought it must be a meteor! It was a ball of red and white burning light shooting down like a massive shooting star. Its lasted about 3 seconds but I happened to be looking right at it. My boyfriend thought I was crazy when I told him. The only thing is - your article says this happened last night, I saw this Tuesday night?
- Rachel
No photo sorry, but saw what looked to be a very big and bright shooting star that moved very fast towards the ocean off the coast of Raglan. It was only visible for maybe 3 seconds. Very vibrant bright white light - not your average shooting star.
- Katrina Goodwin
I'm in the United States, and keep up with the International Space Station, and have a link on my computer to its location at all times, and was watching it pass over New Zealand on my computer's image of the globe.
Its trajectory took it over Australia, then New Zealand, and then the central part of South America after passing over Chile.
You might want to check the time of the sightings of the "bright light" in New Zealand and then check to see where the space station was at that time. If it was over New Zealand, it is possible that was the space station folks saw. Depending upon the angle the sun strikes it, a lot of light can be reflected back toward earth. And I believe it travels at around 17,000 miles per hour, so that would look pretty darn fast to an observer on the ground who is used to seeing jets travel around 750 mph. Despite the altitude of the space station, it would still look like it was going pretty fast.
It appeared to me to take only about ten minutes to get from Australia to South American, so it couldn't have been over New Zealand more than a couple of minutes. My memory says the pass took it over the southern portion of the North Island, from the west (Australia) heading east toward South America.
If anyone is able to confirm if the sighting was actually that of the space station, I sure would like to know, because it comes over my house every now and then. I am an amateur radio operator, and talked to a Russian cosmonaut on board once. Sightings are pretty common once you use the internet program to show you where it is. When it is heading your way, all you do is go outside and look up. It's hard to miss because it is so large and bright and moves so much faster than a jet. The sun has to be over the horizon and hitting it at just the right angle to reflect the light your way for it to be really bright as the witnesses state.
- Mark Regan
