"Giant meteors" rain over the UK
People throughout the UK have reported seeing giant meteors showering the darkened skies.
The BBC was first contacted by eyewitnesses in Glasgow, Scotlandwell and Durness who said they saw the light display at about 0540 GMT.
Then stargazers from Bury, Monmouth and Kidderminster emailed to say they saw a meteor at about 1715 GMT.
It is thought the spectacle is part of the annual Taurids shower, lasting from October into November.
The early morning meteor is reported to have broken into a number of pieces and it left bright streaks of light in the sky.
Douglas Thornton, from Scotlandwell, spotted it.
He said: "It was an off-white light with a massive tail behind it... A phenomenal sight."
Mr Thornton was on his way to Edinburgh Airport when he spotted the meteor while driving.
He told the BBC Scotland News website: "You can see shooting stars every night up where we are, but this was the most enormous streak of light. Enough to back-light the clouds and make them flicker.
"It was moving at an enormous speed. I first saw it in the direction of Auchterarder and by the time I lost sight of it about two seconds later, it was around the Dundee area."
David Wood, said he had just left Durness, on the north coast of Scotland and was heading south towards Kinlochberbie when he saw a "bright green, fairly jagged looking, object in the sky".
He said: "It had a very short, but very bright yellow and red trail behind it. It could have only been a few hundred meters above the ground.
"After my initial view I slowed the car and it broke in two. The larger piece eventually broke up into four smaller pieces which then dissipated into the darkness."
Philip Shaw, from Kidderminster in Worcestershire, said he spotted a "bluish trail travelling across the sky from east to west" at about 1715 GMT on Monday.
He added: "I was driving from Droitwich to Kidderminster - a long way from Glasgow.
"When I got home my wife said she had also seen a yellowish flash at about the same time, but from where she saw it I cannot be sure it was the same as the one I saw."
A similar meteor was seen last week by astronomy expert John Braithwaite while travelling back from giving a presentation to schoolchildren in Dundee - about meteorites.
Mr Braithwaite, who builds astronomical telescopes, said the meteor he spotted with his friend Jared Earle in the early hours of 12 November had been "80 to 90 times brighter" than anything else in the sky.
'Grain of sand'
"There was a very pronounced and bright head to the meteor, which was deep blue at the centre with a green fringe around it," he said.
"They're both probably part of a meteor shower which appears from between mid-October and November every year."
Dr Martin Hendry, from Glasgow University's astronomy department, said: "It certainly sounds possible that it's a meteor of some sort.
"From the descriptions of it being very bright and breaking up, it may have been somewhat larger than normal meteors.
"But even a grain of sand can produce the 'shooting stars' we see - very small objects indeed. It would not need to be that much bigger."
Dr Hendry, a fellow with the Science and Technology Facilities Council, said the different colours could have been a reflection of the different chemical compounds in the meteor.
He said it was possible the meteor reached earth, but that it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly where without precise compass bearings from the people who saw the object.
- BBC News,
