Late at night on August 19, 2025, a light believed to be a fireball was sighted in the skies over various parts of Western Japan, including the Kinki, Shikoku, and Kyushu regions, and was also captured on a live camera installed near Kyoto Station in Shimogyo Ward, Kyoto City.
The camera was set up on the roof of Mori Shinzaburo Shoten, a Buddhist altar goods store located in front of Higashi Honganji Temple, and was live-streaming the video on YouTube.
A little after 11:00 p.m. on August 19, a ray of light appeared in the sky above Kyoto Station, southwest of Kyoto Tower. Immediately after the light disappeared into the shadow of the building, the recording showed the night sky briefly lit up brightly, like a sunset.
Yusuke Mori (38 years old), the store's representative, said, "The fireball was a hot topic the next day, so I watched the recording and was surprised at how bright it was." According to Kyoto University's Okayama Astronomical Observatory (Asaguchi City, Okayama Prefecture), a particularly bright meteor known as a fireball is believed to have flowed toward the Pacific Ocean east of Kagoshima Prefecture, and it is possible that it did not burn up and instead turned into a meteorite, falling into the ocean. They said, "It is extremely rare for a fireball to be sighted over such a wide area in western Japan."
