🎥 VIDEO: Meteor brighter than the moon exploded over Czechia last night

A bright meteor was seen exploding in the Western Bohemia (Pilsen) sky last night. Before splitting up into smaller fragments, the space object was briefly brighter than the full moon. Some of the fragments may have hit the ground but have not yet been recovered, the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (ČHMÚ) said on social media.

Meteorologists identified the object as a bolide, a term for a rare and exceptionally bright meteor that explodes in the atmosphere. These are also colloquially called fireballs.

The event occurred at 10:45 p.m. on Monday night and was captured on video. The ČHMÚ maintains a network of cameras that monitor the night sky just in case of bolides or similar phenomena. The locations of the possible fragments should soon be determined. "They will certainly calculate it in a short period of time and we will see," the meteorologists said, according to ČTK.

A bolide is created by the entry of an object from outer space into the Earth's atmosphere. The friction from the atmosphere causes the object to both heat up and slow down. Most objects that enter the atmosphere burn up completely. Only a small fraction are large enough to create fragments that hit the earth.

According to National Geographic, a meteor is a streak of light in the sky caused by a meteoroid entering the Earth's atmosphere. Meteoroids are pieces of rock or metal that orbit the sun. Meteors that hit the earth’s surface are called meteorites.

While last night’s bolide reportedly did no damage, that is not always the case. One theory is that the Czech basin, which makes up most of Bohemia, was caused by a 20-kilometer-wide meteor that hit Central Bohemia 2 billion years ago, forever changing the Czech landscape. The force of the impact would have been equivalent to several nuclear blasts.