RESIDENTS across South Essex have reported a possible meteor shower or falling space debris that lit up the skies over the region overnight, with first comments and pictures appearing around 9 last night (Monday, 29 March).

Residents took to social media with an array of pictures and questions about the phenomena which had not been predicted.

Southern England is expected to get views of a regular 'season' of meteor showers next month which is known as the Lyrids and is due to fall and cross the skies on 21 or 22 April.

However, random meteor falls of small objects burning up are not uncommon.

In recent days there have been sightings of space junk associated with the launch of the rockets used to put satellites into orbit.

Earlier this month billionaire space adventurer and entrepreneur Elon Musk launched his latest series of 60 Starlink internet satellites to orbit aboard a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, which then falls into its own decaying orbit. The latest rocket has had problems and has been breaking up earlier than expected. It is possible parts of that rocket were what was seen last night.

Because of the number of sightings and pictures it appears likely last night's was caused by the burn-up of human-made objects in Earth's atmosphere, because meteors or other natural objects would likely be moving much faster.

The pictures accompanying this article were posted on Facebook by Samantha Jane, Jj Browning, Shelly Roseman, Emilia Radecka and Samantha Levine.