Meteor as bright as a moon dazzles as it speeds across northern hemisphere

A rare fireball that flashed across the skies above Europe was travelling at a phenomenal speed of 20 kilometres per second, according to a meteor expert.

The blazing object is a bolide, which is the scientific name of a meteor that results in a flash as bright as the moon.

Footage captured by the UK Meteor Observation Network (UKMON) just after midnight on Saturday shows the bolide glowing spectacularly, as it plummets towards Earth.

There were dozens of sightings of the fireball in England, Wales and France, according to the UKMON.

Richard Fleet, a member of UKMON, told Sky News the fireball was extremely bright and probably weighed a couple of kilograms.

Witnesses who saw the bolide reported seeing a mix of colours, including white, orange, yellow, red and blue. Others said they could hear loud explosions as the object moved through the sky.

"It would have been coming in at about 20 kilometres per second (km/s). The Space Station is moving at about 8km/s," Fleet said.

Fireballs, such as bolide meteors, are categorised as being brighter than magnitude -4, the same as Venus, according to the American Meteor Society.