Meteor shower lights up Twitter

Some parts of the UK witnessed spectacular fireworks in the skies last night as the annual Persied meteor shower reached its peak.

Every August, the Earth ploughs through a swarm of dusty particles shed by a passing comet, Swift-Tuttle.

As the particles, each no bigger than a grain of sand, hit the atmosphere at 135,000mph they burn up, producing trails of light that shoot across the sky.

Twitter Meteorwatch, supported by the Royal Astronomical Society and British Astronomical Association, allowed people to share their meteor experiences.

An online "meteor map", on the microblogging site, showed where shooting stars were spotted around the world.

The BAA launched Project Perseid 2010 to gather scientific data from observations made by amateur sky watchers.