Scientific analysis of north Qld meteorite would be 'incredibly important', expert says

In a mesmerising celestial event, the meteor pierced through the atmosphere at about 9.22pm on May 20, casting an enchanting light show which left onlookers from Cooktown in the state's far north to Normanton in the north west spellbound.

Footage of the event was shared widely across the internet and social media, prompting an online hunt to determine where the meteor might have crashed.

Griffith University's dean of scientific research Professor Paulo De Souza urged keen prospectors to document any findings.

"Once you find one, document it well," Dr De Souza told the North West Star.

"If it's potentially a piece of the meteorite, you need to document where you find it, take photos, register the GPS location, because what you found could be one of many fragments," he said

"The best places to take it would be to a museum, a university, a police station or whatever is close by to you, so that the rock can be analysed and characterised.

"The characterisation of that could lead to really important discoveries that can help us understand our solar system better or how the universe was made."

Croydon Shire Mayor Trevor Pickering told ABC News he expected the event would draw prospectors to the town, located more than 500 kilometres west of Cairns in Queensland's gulf country.

"There's got to be bits of it laying around somewhere," he said.

"Finding the site would be difficult but I would actually like to put a helicopter up and have a bit of a fly around."

Professor of astrophysics at Macquarie University, Richard de Grijs, shed light on the stunning phenomenon.

"The colour of the fireball has to do with chemistry," he said.

"In this case, I'd say the green colour that you see has to do with nickel burning up in the atmosphere, but copper and iron is also possible because they also burn green."

Dr de Grijs said the meteor seen on the weekend was a rogue meteor, and not part of a cometary tail.

"The vast majority of meteors are really small, the one we same this weekend I understand was a fireball perhaps one metre across, which is a bit bigger than what we usually see, but nowhere near the size which would cause some concern."

While meteorites fall through the earth's atmosphere every day, Dr De Souza said it was especially important for people to know what to do when they find a piece of rock that looks like a meteorite.

"It will be black. It will have a very soft, polished surface," he said.

"If you want to be careful, you can take a piece of aluminium foil or plastic and to put [the rock] inside, so there's no risk.

"Once you can find one you can walk around and try to see if you can find other ones.

"Usually you will find larger ones moving towards the direction of fall."

Dr De Souza said to be able to analyse the meteorite would be "incredibly important".

"It's really important to educate people about what to do if they find it so they can search for some type of support from a museum, so they can interact with that precious scientific artefact.

"It is exciting when you see them falling because that gives us an opportunity to learn more."