A meteor was seen illuminating the night sky in Norway’s southeast side, leaving people awestruck.
Norway experienced powerful flashes of light, followed by loud bangs – described by the witnesses on Sunday.
Although the police received a flood of emergency calls still there were no reports of injuries or damage.
According to the team of experts who are hunting for the meteorite – landed in a forest near the capital, Oslo.
A meteor is a space rock that burns brightly after entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. It is called a meteorite if it survives its passage to the ground.
Sunday’s event was visible for at least five seconds after it appeared at about 01:00 local time (23:00 GMT), as told by the Norwegian Meteor Network.
Vegard Rekaa, a Norwegian astronomer said his wife was awake the experience the rare moment. He also said that she could hear “shaking in the air” before the explosion.
She thought something heavy just fell near the house that caused such an intense sound.
Mr Rekaa said this was “something very seldom seen” in Norway or anywhere in the world.
He further added that a team of professionals was sent to examine the area where the meteor is suspected to have landed.
Earlier the research suggested the meteor might have landed in a wooded area called Finnemarka, about 60km (40 miles) west of Oslo.
Also, some campers reported “a large explosion just above their heads”, Mr Rekaa said.
A female camper told him of seeing the fireball from a short distance but she assumed it was her friends playing a trick on her.
Examination of the meteor suggests it could have weighed at least 10kg (22lb).
Therefore, it was surprisingly not so large but it was special because many people either heard or saw it – Mr Rekaa said.
Moreover, his colleague at the Norwegian Meteor Network, Morten Bilet, was among the witnesses.
He told Reuters news agency the meteor had probably hit our solar system’s asteroid belt as it was travelling between Mars and Jupiter.
Mr Bilet described it as a “spooky” event, rather than a dangerous one.
Such meteor strikes are rare but can cause widespread damage and injuries. It happened once in Russia’s Ural Mountains in 2013 when it crashed down and injured at least 1,600 people.
