The evidence so far shows that the bright fireball seen over parts of the UK on 14 September was space junk, not a meteorite.
Will Gater is a writer.
There was a fireball in the UK on the 14th of September.
The UK's meteorological network is on social networking sites.
A bright fireball was seen over Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England on the night of 14 September.
The spectacular event, spotted at about 10pm local time, was caught in numerous videos on social media, which showed a bright green light moving at speed across the sky.
At the time of writing, at least 900 accounts had been submitted to the international catalogue of fireball events. Some observers reported hearing a rumble after the event, which is thought to have happened over a region near the islands.
It is not yet known if the fireball was caused by a natural space rock entering Earth's atmosphere or a piece of debris from human space activity.
It is possible that this is space junk. The fireball had a very shallow entry angle and it looked slow. The space rocks are a bit quicker. A planetary scientist at the University of Glasgow, UK, and member of the UK Fireball Alliance says that they are still crunching the numbers to find out if the object is space rock or not.
At high speeds, meteorites typically enter the atmosphere at 75 to 80 thousand miles per hour. It would take between 121 and129 thousand kilometres per hour to do this. Depending on the original trajectory of the space junk, it would be much slower.
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