Suspected meteor lights up the early morning sky over Australia

Oct. 10 (UPI) -- A bright fireball that illuminated the early morning sky over Australia's New South Wales and Queensland is believed to have been a particularly large fireball.

Multiple residents from across the two states reported spotting a bright fireball in the sky before 6 a.m. Thursday, sparking speculation of what the object could be.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist with Australian National University, told 2GB radio host Ben Fordham that the object was most likely a meteor. He said the green color reported by some witnesses indicates iron and nickel burning up in the atmosphere.

"It's unlikely fragments fell on the ground," Tucker said. "It clearly covered a lot of distance in a short amount of time. So definitely a broken chunk of an asteroid that randomly hit the Earth's atmosphere."