Blue fireball lights up European skies as meteor streaks by

A blue meteor lit up the sky over Europe on Saturday night as a chunk of comet burned up in the atmosphere.

Videos and images on social media showed the bright blue flash of a fireball streaking across the sky in the south of Spain and Portugal, towards the Atlantic Ocean.

People as far north as Brittany, in France, and as far south as Andalusia, in Spain, reported seeing the shooting star. Early analysis has suggested that it came from an icy comet, explaining its startling light blue colour.

“It appears that this object was a small piece of a comet,” the European Space Agency wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“We estimate that it flew over Spain and Portugal travelling at ~45 km/s [25 miles per second] before burning up over the Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of ~60 km [37 miles]. The likelihood of any meteorites being found is very low.”

Could have originated in Halley’s Comet

Scientists did not have any indication the fragment of rock was heading towards Earth until it was seen lighting up the planet’s atmosphere over Spain at around 10.45pm local time.

Prof Jose Maria Madiedo, an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, led work to determine from several fireball-spotting cameras that the space rock had ended its journey over the ocean, and to ratify the assessment of the European Space Agency’s Planetary Defence Office that it was of cometary origin.

Which comet the piece came from, and how big it was, remains uncertain – but it is possible that it originated in Halley’s Comet and formed part of the Eta Aquariids meteor shower.

However, this has yet to be confirmed, and the fireball was travelling slower than an Aquariid event normally does. Nasa has said the Aquariids run from mid-April to the end of May and peak in early May.