Gigantic mystery meteor scorches through the sky above remote Russian city
Fireball lit up sky above Sayanogorsk before breaking apart to the amazement of local residents
THIS is the incredible moment a meteor explodes in Earth's atmosphere as it soars across the night sky.
The amazing video was filmed by residents of West Siberia in Russia, who saw the sky brighten for several seconds before a loud bang.
The fireball exploded over the town of Sayanogorsk at 6:35pm local time last night, setting off several car alarms and leaving some debris in its wake.
The Russian Space Institute said: "It was probably no more than 10 to 15 meters in diameter, and was made of stone not iron.
"Such meteors, unless they enter the atmosphere at a very sharp angle, are not dangerous."
Authorities say that if any fragments survived, they are most likely to have landed in the Babik Valley - and they have already dispatched a team to go investigate.
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Local resident and witness Olga Sagalakova told the : "At first, I couldn’t understand what’s going on.
"There was a sudden luminescence. It wasn’t as light as day, but still quite bright."
"We looked at the mountain near us and there was huge meteor flying above it. It had a tail.
"Frankly, I was scared. I thought that it was a bomb."
Another local, Nikolay Soldatov, said that the meteor “emitted a cold light like a fluorescent lamp.”
He added: “I saw that it was starting to brighten fast. The flash was really bright. It wasn’t blinding, but it was still bright. I looked up and... above the city hospital there was a meteor.”
Witness Sergey Isaykin said: "“It was very beautiful. You don’t see this every day.
"But we weren’t scared as we instantly understood that it was something like [what happened] in Chelyabinsk three years ago.”
City official Leonid Bykov told Reuters: "At about 18:37 a flying shining object was seen over the territory of the town followed by a sound of a blast.
"Of course there was an earth shock. To find the cause of it the respective services were alerted.
"But there is no damage to social facilities or factories of the town of Sayanogorsk.”
In 2013 a huge fireball entered the Earth's atmosphere and landed in Chelyabinsk.
The light from it was brighter than the sun and it could be seen from 100km away.
The explosion panicked locals, with 1,500 people injured and over 7,000 buildings in the region damaged by the shock wave.
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