Mysterious 'fireball' caught on camera blazing over Bangkok

Dashcam video footage captured the phenomenon that played out in front of commuters during Monday morning rush hour. Photo / YouTube

Dashcam footage captures the moment a bright white light blazes across the sky in northern Thailand.

A mysterious fireball seen plummeting towards Earth over northern Bangkok and central Thailand lit up social media with dramatic video footage and feverish speculation.

A bright white light was seen hurtling down through the blue sky and then apparently exploding, prompting theories that the blazing cascade was caused by anything from space debris or a burning balloon to a crashing space ship.

But astronomers played down the more outlandish theories, saying that the spectacle was probably caused by a so-called "bolide" - a meteor burning up during entry into the atmosphere.

Dashcam video footage captured the phenomenon that played out in front of commuters during Monday morning rush hour.

"It's all burned away" Worawit Tanwutthibundit, an astronomer at Chachoengsao Observatory, told Matichon newspaper. "The photo of the white smoke that has been shared a lot is in fact the train of smoke of a meteor. The public need not be concerned. This is a normal phenomenon."

Mr Worawit said that he spotted the apparent meteor as he drove along a motorway in northern Bangkok. He estimated that it plunged at a speed of nearly 50 miles per second before disintegrating from the heat in what looked like an explosion leaving behind a trail of white smoke.

Most meteors completely burn up in space, but they are occasionally seen as dramatic fireballs entering the atmosphere. Most notably, the Chelyabinsk meteor was a "superbolide" that entered the atmosphere over Russia in February 2013. The fireball that streaked across the sky in the southern Ural was brighter than the Sun.