Stunning footage has shown the eerie moment a meteor lights up the night sky over Turkey, turning it green as it passes overhead.
The spectacular clip, in the eastern city of Erzurum, shows a child playing with a balloon in the foreground as the entire night sky is illuminated behind him.
Another film shows a car driving along a road when the sky similarly lights up green, with the meteor visible overhead.
It then bursts into a flash of green light as it draws nearer, before transforming into a ball of white light, after which the road becomes dark once more.
The aerial phenomenon comes just a few weeks after the Perseid meteor shower, which was active between July 17 and August 19.
Skywatchers in the UK were treated to a regular early evening show.
A explanation on the website of the Royal Museums Greenwich states: “As comets get close to the Sun, they heat up and pieces break off.
“If the debris ends up in the Earth’s path around the Sun, it can slam into our atmosphere at speeds of between seen and 45 miles per second.
“The actual speed at which a meteor enters our atmosphere depends on the combined speed of the Earth and the debris itself.”
It continued: “The average speed for a Perseid meteor is 36 miles per second.
“The air in front of the meteor is squashed and heated to thousands of degrees Celsius.
“The smaller meteors vaporize and leave behind a bright trail of light. Larger meteors can explode as fireballs.”
