Fireball seen traveling across sky over Tokyo

Many people in Tokyo and surrounding areas have taken to social media to report seeing what appeared to be a fireball shooting across the night sky.

Eyewitnesses posted about the phenomenon that was observed shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday across the Kanto region, which includes Tokyo.

A video taken by an NHK camera in the capital's Shinjuku Ward shows a ball of light streaking from the upper middle of the screen to the lower left.

Another NHK camera in Tokyo's Chuo Ward captured similar footage, and the light is seen reflected on the surface of water.

Fujii Daichi, a curator who specializes in astronomy at the Hiratsuka City Museum, near Tokyo, said he believes it was a fragment of an asteroid that burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Footage taken by Fujii shows a whitish light slowly traveling across the sky for several seconds.

Fujii said the fragment may have become a meteorite, because it was very bright when it came into low atmospheric areas. He added that the shooting star was shining long enough for people to make wishes on it.