Stunning new footage shows a bright green “fireball” meteor exploding in the sky Volcano In the Philippines. Initial reports suggested that the falling space rock may have hit the mountain’s fiery slopes – however, experts have confirmed that this was not actually what happened.
At 10:33 p.m. local time (10:33 a.m. EDT) on Sunday (May 25), an “eye-catching” fireball was spotted in the sky above Mount Mayon, located within Albay province on Luzon island in the central Philippines. philippine space agency.
Two livestreams monitoring Mayon’s ongoing eruption captured the bright flash, which lasted more than a second. The volcano, which stands 8,081 feet (2,463 meters) above sea level, began erupting in early January, according to the Smithsonian Institution. global volcano program.
The first video (above), captured by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), shows the event in black and white, with a bright flash near the mountain’s summit, illuminating the glowing lava.
second video (below), captured in full color by livestream experts far tvRevealing the red glow of seeping magma, as well as the emerald light of streaking meteors. If you look all the way to the end, you may see a small light rising from near the meteor trail; According to AfarTV, it is believed to be light from a satellite and has no connection to the meteorite.
Meteor fireball falls behind Mayon Volcano during eruption (May 25, 2026) – YouTube
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Phivolx representative at the beginning Posted That their footage shows “a meteor hitting [volcano’s] North Slope,” which spawned some misleading viral videos on social media.
However, an update to the first post later clarified that “Our review of seismic, infrasound, and additional camera footage around the volcano indicates that the meteor disintegrated while in the atmosphere and did not hit the slopes of Mayon.”
Some estimates suggest that if the meteor had hit Mayon shortly after it flared up, it could have impacted with a force equivalent to 7,500 tonnes (6,800 metric tons) of dynamite, according to philippine information agency. Experts said that if this is accurate, it would likely have caused a massive rock fall, which would have been picked up by earthquake sensors around the volcano.
Even without the effect, the dueling display of fire in the sky is a remarkable coincidence.
“Fireball” meteor
When do fireball meteorites occur? asteroid Survive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere but then burn up due to high friction with the air.
“As [fireballs] “As they descend into the atmosphere at high speed, friction heats them so intensely that they vaporize,” representatives of the Philippine Space Agency wrote. “This heat also ionizes the air molecules around them, creating the bright, glowing streaks we see as ‘shooting stars.'” These typically occur between 37 and 62 miles (60 to 100 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, they said.
In this case, Similar previous comments There are suggestions that the green color of the fireball was possibly due to the high concentration of nickel within the asteroid.
Some large pieces of these exploded space rocks may survive to reach the ground as meteorites, which may help scientists. Learn more about the formation of the Solar System.
On extremely rare occasions, fragments may even strike people’s property, as happened recently in Texas, when a cannonball-sized piece of fireball The roof of a house in Houston was demolished. The impact was one of a series of recent events across the US, including a rare daytime fireball Massive sonic explosion begins in Ohio.
