A bright meteor streaking across the night sky has dazzled stargazers in the greater Tokyo area.

Many people took to social media to describe seeing a 'ball of fire' flying through the sky shortly after 7:20 p.m. on Thursday.

An NHK camera in Narusawa Village, Yamanashi Prefecture, captured a sphere of light traveling through the sky at the same time.

Astronomer Fujii Daichi, a curator at the Hiratsuka City Museum in Kanagawa Prefecture, said the phenomenon is known as a fireball.

He said fireballs appear when asteroid fragments and other objects plummeting through the Earth's atmosphere burn out.

Footage taken by Fujii at his home in Hiratsuka City also captures the fireball speeding across the sky.

Fujii said the fireball left a long trail of light. He added the trajectory suggests the meteor could have crashed into the sea.

He said that people who saw the fireball were fortunate as it is impossible to know when and where the phenomenon will occur.