VIDEO: ‘Fireball’ meteor explosion turns the sky green over Turkey

Mostafa Al Zoubi, Gulf Today

A video clip went viral on social networking sites of a fireball glittering with bright green glow over the Turkish city of Izmir before disappearing behind the landscape and hitting the ground at around 2am on Saturday.

People said it could be a meteorite, a satellite, or an UFO.

Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion as the fireball hit the ground.

Astrophysics professor Hassan Ali Dal explained on Twitter, “The mysterious object is a fireball which usually appears when a meteor starts to burn in the atmosphere.”

Dal added that meteors usually burn in the upper atmosphere, a phenomenon known as meteors, which appears during periods of meteor rain, as the Earth is currently witnessing a "Persid meteor shower."

The green light increases as the meteor passes through the clouds.

This occurs every year throughout July and August, when the earth intersects with the debris remaining from the comet Swift-Tuttle, where meteors travel at about 133,200 miles/h.

Dal explained that such meteorites burn in the earth’s atmosphere and only a few collide with the Earth, and that 50 meteorites can be spotted per hour during their peak in the sky.

The green colour of the meteors, said Dal is due to their composition, as they may contain large amounts of nickel.

According to Dal, this comes at a time when Turkey is suffering from huge forest fires, which claimed the lives of 6 so far.