Meteor lights up Australian night sky with rainbow of colours

A meteor has produced a rainbow of light seen in parts of eastern Australia as it streaked across the night sky.

Streaks ranging from blue to orange were reported across the sky on Thursday from Bondi in Sydney's eastern suburbs to Mudgee and Jugiong in regional NSW, as well as Canberra and Queensland.

Duncan Rayner from Sydney's Northern Beaches happened to captured the spectacle while filming himself in an attempt to improve his golf game.

"I was at the local driving range practising my swing, and I filmed myself to show off all my flaws of my swing and trying to correct it," Mr Rayner told 702 ABC Sydney.

"And I was completely oblivious that there was a meteor falling directly over the ocean.

Astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker told 702 ABC Sydney the blue and green colour of the object streaking through the night sky indicated that it was a meteor.

"A lot of that bluey-green colour that a lot of people saw, that is from when you get a lot of iron and nickel in a meteor," Dr Tucker said.

"People started to see this bright fireball, and then all of a sudden they got this bright flash happening.

"That's when … enough pressure builds up with all the friction and pressure going on this object and causes it to fracture."

Newcastle resident Sal Kav was driving home from work last night when the meteor lit up the sky.

Ms Kav said she had never seen anything like it before.

"It was this bright white light, and then as it disappeared. It exploded and had all these other colours in it."

Why different colours are observed

David Finaly, an amateur astronomer who runs Australian Meteor Reports, described the spectacle as a "fireball blaze".

He said the reason different videos showed the meteor as either blue or orange was mostly due to its temperature as it moved through the atmosphere.

"A lot of people are going to see a range of different colours, but it can depend on how close people are when they observe it, and the angle they see it, and its temperature," he said.

"When it's hottest, it's a bluer colour. If it's close to the horizon, you're going to be looking at more smog, then it becomes more orange as it goes through the atmosphere."