Very bright fireball over North Island, New Zealand
A bright fireball was observed over New Zealand’s North Island at 09:31 UTC (22:31 NZDT) on November 17, 2025, captured by multiple Fireballs Aotearoa cameras, including the color camera at Tauranga Astronomical Society in Matua and station NZ0033 in Katikati.
Bright fireball over North Island, New Zealand on November 17, 2025. Credit: Fireballs Aotearoa
A very bright fireball was recorded over New Zealand’s North Island at 09:31 UTC on Monday, November 17.
Fireballs Aotearoa reported captures on several network cameras, including the Tauranga Astronomical Society (TAS) color meteor camera in Matua, Tauranga, and the Katikati station.
No trajectory, radiant, absolute magnitude estimate, fragmentation data or potential fall area has been published at this time. The event occurred near the nominal Leonid maximum (active November 6–30 with peak around November 17), but any shower association remains unconfirmed pending analysis of multi-station data.
Note that the audio heard on the clip below is wind noise on the microphone, not sound from the meteor.
Tauranga Astronomical Society’s observatory and clubrooms are located at Fergusson Park, Matua, Tauranga, where the color all-sky camera operates in collaboration with Fireballs Aotearoa.
Fireballs Aotearoa, a section of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, runs a nationwide meteor camera network to document bright meteors and, when possible, triangulate trajectories for potential meteorite recovery.
Members of the public who observed the event are encouraged to submit observational reports to Fireballs Aotearoa and to the International Meteor Organization (IMO).
I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
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