What was this object?

Question

I was observing the night sky about a month ago when i saw a streak of light in the sky. It lasted for only a few seconds. Is it a comet, a shooting star or something? And I saw it again about a few days later but in a different location.

Answer 1

Comets hang around for weeks, even months.  They don't just streak by like in the movies.  You probably saw what is known as a shooting star - it's a piece of rock, the size of a baseball or smaller, hitting the Earth's atmosphere and burning up.  There's a couple every hour, so it's not strange to see several a night or on a few different nights.  At some times of the year, particularly in August and Nov, there are hundreds an hour.

Answer 2

It sounds as if it was a meteor, or what is popularly called a "shooting star": a small piece of space debris which enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up.

Answer 3

Did you make a wish? Shooting stars - bits of debris from space hitting the atmosphere - usually from a nearby asteroid belt. They often appear at certain times of year as the Earth passes by.

Answer 4

It was probably just space junk reentering the earths atmosphere and heating up until it was turned into a fine dust.

Answer 5

it may be a crash of any asteroid on earth's atmosphere.

Answer 6

It could have been many things.  However, we may need more details, such as coloring, speed, etc, or most people will probably laugh and say you discovered an airplane.

Answer 7

A shooting star. I saw one as well. Are you in Australia?

Answer 8

A comet is visible for weeks or months.

A "shooting star" is the commonly-used term for a meteor.

Meteors are small rocks or debris (usually no larger than a golf ball or even smaller) that enter our atmosphere and burn up from the friction.

The streak of light is from the materials and gases burning - the streak can last from 1 or 2 seconds to as much as 7 or 8 seconds depending on the size, speed, trajectory, and composition of the object.

What you saw a few days later was a different meteor.

Its estimated that anywhere up to several hundred meteors of all sizes enter the atmosphere each day - most burn up very quickly and occur either during the day (and are therefore not visible) or are so short-lived that they are not noticed.

There are a couple of very minor "meteor showers" in right now (the Tau Aquarids and the Theta Ophiuchids) with very low hourly rates.

Congratulations on seeing 2 meteors - most people see very few unless they actively go out to a dark site to look for them.