Portuguese girl's video goes viral after she captures blue comet on camera

A Portuguese girl captured a rare sight on camera - a comet fragment shooting across the sky and illuminating it turquoise.

Milena Refacho posted the footage on social media platforms, Twitter and Instagram. The video soon went viral and garnered over six million views.

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the comet fragment moved through the skies of Portugal and Spain before burning up in the atmosphere. As a result, a blue-green explosion lit up the sky at nearly midnight local time.

It is unlikely for any of the fragments to have survived the fiery crash, according to ESA.

What made this comet fragment's descent so extraordinary was its speed - a whopping 100,000 miles per hour. The speed is twice the average speed of a rocky asteroid. It is because of this speed that the comet's final display was twice as bright as usual, making it a truly spectacular sight.

Comets are composed of ice and rock and are thought to have been born at the dawn of our Solar System.

Planetary astronomer Meg Schwamb of Queen's University in Belfast said that the brilliance of this comet may indicate its size. He said that it was likely bigger than a good fraction of the meteors seen during meteor showers.

"It’s an unexpected interplanetary fireworks show," the astronomer added.

Schwamb described the event as "an unexpected interplanetary fireworks show," and it's clear that Milena Refacho's lucky capture has given us a rare glimpse into the wonders of our universe.