FireballImage source, UK Meteor Network

Hundreds of people have said they saw a shooting star in the sky over Scotland and Northern Ireland.

There were reports of a fireball at 21:45 on Wednesday night.

Scientists are using video footage from the public to figure out if the object in the sky was a meteorite or space junk.

It's not known if it landed or burned up.

meteorites are pieces of space debris that survive the burning journey to the ground.

Most of the reports it had received were from Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it was also seen in the north east of England.

Steve Owens is an astronomer at the Glasgow Science Center.

He said he saw a bright fireball in the sky as he sat in his living room at 21:45.

It was something special. Through the broken cloud, I could see that it was splitting apart.

If you see a shooting star or a meteor, they are tiny little streaks of light that last a fraction of a second, but this one was streaking across the sky for at least ten seconds.

Image caption, Mark Rae filmed the fireball shooting across the sky from his home in Saltcoats

It traveled from the south to the west. It was amazing.

It was unlikely, but not impossible, that it would have reached the ocean.

Normally these little shooting stars burn up and everything disappears in the atmosphere, but the thing last night was bigger than a small amount of dust which causes normal shooting stars.

It might have been the size of a golf ball or a cricket ball.

It is highly unlikely that it fell anywhere in Scotland, but if you are looking for space debris, you should look for something that is magnetic.

James Williams recorded it on his phone and doorbell camera after he saw it in his garden. He likened it to a firework but silent.

Danny was walking his dog in the area when he saw the fireball.

He told the PA news agency that he saw a flash in the sky and recorded it on his phone.

I thought it was a firework when I first saw it, but I grabbed my phone to see if I could catch it.

Dr Aine O'Brien is from the University of Glasgow and the UK Fireball Alliance.

We don't know if it was a meteorite, but it could have been space junk.

In the next few hours, we will know. It's possible that we have the first Scottish meteorite in over 100 years.

If the fireball did not burn up in the atmosphere, scientists will use the videos to triangulate where it came from.

She didn't think it was a big deal.

It is a wonderful thing. We get shooting stars and meteorites.

She said that the weather conditions and timing of the fireball made it possible for many people to record it.

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