The people of Perth, Australia, had quite the Tuesday evening, with a fireball blazing its way past the city, causing a pretty mixed reaction amongst residents.

Some enjoyed seeing the fireball, believed to have been a meteor entering the atmosphere, whilst others thought it was the beginning of the end.

You can buy a Doomsday bunker for that, but let’s find out more about the fireball via ABC News:

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services started receiving calls at 7:40pm from people who said they had seen a fireball streak across the sky.

More than one concerned caller suggested it could be a UFO while others were more concerned the flash could start a fire…

Robyn Garratt, from the town of York 100km east of Perth, was among those who witnessed the incident.

“We heard the boom, we saw the light, we just thought it was lightning to start with, but the boom that came after it was definitely not thunder,” she told ABC Radio Perth.

“In York, people felt a lot more than that. They all went running outside thinking the sky was falling, basically.”

There are plenty of video compilations out there, but we’ve chosen this one from 9 News Perth because it features some bloody fair dinkum Ozzies:

That guy at the 1:38 mark seems like an interesting character.

Scientists are pretty excited about the whole thing, and the search to find the ‘meteor’ is underway:

Director of the Desert Fireball Network, Professor Phil Bland, said initial observations indicated there was a fair chance the object made it to Earth.

“It was unusually bright so it must have been a big object, so that is really exciting,” he said.

“It also looks like we’ve seen it on multiple cameras which means that we’ll be able to triangulate exactly how it came in through the atmosphere, what its position was, what its speed was, what its size was [and] work out where it came from in the solar system, and if any of it landed.”

…Professor Bland said most meteors travelled incredibly fast and completely burned up in the earth’s atmosphere — with only about 2–3 per cent of those that were visible ever making it to the ground…

“When we actually have that context and we’re able to say ‘this comes from the outer solar system’ or ‘this comes from near Mars’ that’s so useful. So when we find one it’s an incredible experience and just putting your hands on that is a fantastic moment.

“It’s very emotional as well as scientifically satisfying.”

We are rooting for you, Professor Bland.

[source:abc]