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Bucharest residents witnessed night transform into day after a meteor was seen blazing through the the sky.

At 3:05am local time, several security cameras throughout the Romanian city captured the incredible sight of the space rock lighting up the area.

The flash lasted for several seconds, with locals expressing their shock at the eerie glow which engulfed parts of the capital.

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At 3:05am local time, several security cameras throughout the city captured the incredible sight of the space rock lighting up the area. This image was captured by a NXDATA-2 rooftop security camera

The Romanian Space Agency (Rosa) said the event was caused by a meteoroid entering the Earth's atmosphere and was recorded at an altitude of 31 - 43 miles (50 – 70km).

A rooftop camera from surveillance company NxData showed the transformation, while another camera revealed lights as seen from the Otopeni airport in Bucharest.

It's unknown whether this meteoroid survived its entry into Earth's atmosphere to leave debris on and become a meteorite.

Rosa claims the most likely scenario is that it burned in the atmosphere without causing any damage to surrounding buildings.

Every day, more than 40 tonnes of meteoroids hit our atmosphere.

Meteoroid burns up in the skies above Romania

A space rock lights up the streets in Romania. It's unknown whether this meteoroid survived its entry into Earth's atmosphere to leave debris on and become a meteorite

Bucharest witnessed night transform into day after a meteor was seen blazing over the Romanian capital

Many are tiny specks of comet dust that crumble harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere, producing a slow drizzle of meteors in the night sky.

If the fireball is travelling slow enough, and makes it low enough, it is possible that it can survive to the ground as a meteorite.

Last year, an incredible animation for MailOnline was unveiled that lets you scroll and zoom around the world as meteorite impacts from recorded history unfold before your eyes.

The map was created by data journalist Simon Rogers, and shows where asteroids have impacted over the last thousand years.

Scrolling around the world, you can see where some of the biggest hotspots are. And it also highlights how vulnerable our planet is to asteroids.

Nasa estimates that just one per cent of the millions of asteroids in our solar system have been found.

But, although you can see recorded impacts on land in these animations, most asteroids that encounter Earth either explode in the atmosphere or land at sea.

This means the vast majority are unrecorded and, as we don't know the location of every asteroid in the solar system, we're not sure when one will next hit.

Rosa claims the most likely scenario is that the meteoroid burned in the atmosphere without causing any damage to surrounding buildings