A fireball meteor was seen streaking daylight skies in Bangkok. (Photo : Porjai Jaturongkhakun/Youtube)
Locals in Thailand were surprised to see a supposed fireball meteor that streaked daytime skies on Monday, that immediately went viral on social media.
This rare footage was captured on a dashboard car camera in Bangkok as this fireball exuded a brilliant flash of white light that was also witnessed by many all across the country.
According to witness and dashcam owner Porjai Jaturongkhakun, it was in the middle of the day where there were blue skies and then there was a quick, bright light coming down as he was driving to work. The satellite engineer adds that he usually sees shooting stars however, he never saw one in broad daylight before.
Porjai is only one of a number of locals who managed to record this rare and dramatic sky event on their car dashboard cameras where many similar footage and witness accounts suddenly became viral on social media.
According to Voravit Tanvuttibundit from the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, it was definitely a meteor, since it was fast and very bright. Voravit explains that this is a normal occurrence but this meteor on Monday morning was especially big and very bright, where he also saw the fireball around 8:40 A.M. local time.
Since Thailand is a country that is steeped in superstition, others regard this meteor strike as a bad omen. Facebook user Dilok Jantaradilok posted that it was indeed a bad sign that shows how the nation and the government is in chaos.
In scientific terms, these "falling stars" are actually made from smaller pieces of space rock that enters and burns in the Earth's atmosphere at 37 miles every second, burning up quickly upon entry, seen as bright flashes of light. On occasion, bigger strikes also mean that larger chunks of space rock and debris are entering the atmosphere.
