Bright meteors were spotted over the skies of New Zealand's capital city of Wellington on Thursday and of Chile's capital city Santiago Friday morning, footage of which was been shared over social media.
In Chile, the sight was also accompanied by a sound, with international media reports stating that Santiago residents heard a thunderous sound accompanying the fiery meteor shooting through the sky.
The meteor itself was recognized by experts at Concepción University, who said it was a small rock that burned in the atmosphere, the BBC reported.
"I ran outside and saw the trail of it and then there was this low rumble, just like at the start of an earthquake."
Mike Cousins
New Zealand meteor
On Thursday, a burning meteor was spotted over New Zealand's capital city of Wellington with dozens of witnesses saying they saw a bright light and heard a boom as the fireball passed.
Weather forecaster MetService said on Twitter its radar has a picked up a possible smoke trail of the meteor and geological agency GeoNet said it believed its seismometer had detected its sound-waves at around 1.50 p.m. (0150 GMT)
Mike Cousins was working from home near Wellington when the room lit up with blue-orange hue.
"I ran outside and saw the trail of it and then there was this low rumble, just like at the start of an earthquake," Cousins told Reuters.
Alan Gilmore, an astronomer at Canterbury University's Mount John Observatory, told Reuters that a bright meteor coming down through the atmosphere very fast was a rare occurrence over an urban area.
"This was glowing very brightly so it must have been quite a big object," said Gilmore. The boom that people heard indicated the meteor had come within 60 km (37 miles) of earth, he said.
There were no reports of the meteor hitting the ground or ocean and no debris from it had been found.
What is a meteor?
Meteors originate from asteroids or other large bodies in space. Asteroids under a meter in size are simply known as meteoroids.
When meteoroids or very small asteroids impact the Earth's atmosphere, they become visible but largely disintegrate, sometimes forming into bright fireballs in the process. Anything left upon impact is what are known as meteorites.
This explosion is what usually befalls most meteors that enter the Earth's atmosphere.
Aaron Reich contributed to this report.