Flare over Western Cape turns out to be rare meteor sighting
The South African National Space Agency says all indications are that a meteor had entered the Earth's atmosphere above the Western Cape on Wednesday night.
In a statement issued on Thursday SANSA says although meteor sightings are quite common it was a rare event for the Western Cape.
The Agency says photographs of the celestial event suggest that the meteor broke up into at least two pieces high up in the atmosphere and in all probability burnt up in the atmosphere as no impact was confirmed at this stage.
SANSA says the meteor is estimated to be between 1 and 2 m in diameter which makes it extremely difficult to detect by telescope warning systems.
The NSRI says it was inundated with calls from people across the Cape Town regarding the sighting shortly after 8 pm.
Spokesperson, Craig Lambinon says they initially thought it was a flare but eventually came to the conclusion that it was nothing but a shooting star.
Last night SAAO post doctoral researcher Nicolas Erasmus managed to observe the close approaching near-Earth asteroid 2019 AG7.
— SAAO (@SAAO) January 14, 2019
Discovered: 2019-01-09 by Catalina Sky Survey
Close Approach Date and Distance: 15 Jan 2019 at 22:43 UT, 3.92 lunar distances
Size estimate: 20-50m pic.twitter.com/oVOob2hQPJ