A dazzling meteor has lit up Victorian skies, leaving many gazing upwards in awe.

Residents across the state, from Ballarat and Bendigo to Melbourne’s outer western suburbs, witnessed the unusual sighting about 7.40pm on Sunday.

Many took to social media to report hearing a sonic boom while seeing a fireball sweep across the sky, briefly lighting up the night as if it were daylight.

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Some even said they felt their houses shake.

“It was massive. Was so big and bright and then minutes later after it disappeared I heard a rumble and felt my house shake in Kyneton,” one user posted.

“Yep five seconds of daylight at night with a big boom after it passed over,” another wrote.

“In Bendigo .... The bang was so loud! All the neighbours were outside trying to figure out what happened ...” a local resident shared.

“I felt the boom! Thought my roof was caving in!” commented a witness.

“Just out of Bendigo and it shook the house,” added another.

Associate Professor of Astronomy at Monash University, Michael Brown, said the meteor over Central Victoria was unusual.

“It’s fairly rare to get a meteor this bright (in) overpopulated areas,” Brown told www.20304050.best.

“While these meteors are pretty common globally, most of them haul over the ocean or in remote areas. So, to have one in the early evening when people are still up and about, and when lots of people are awake to hear the sonic boom, etcetera, that’s a bit more special,” he explained.

Brown said regular meteor showers usually occur in the early morning hours, when most people are asleep, and are generally smaller than the one seen on Sunday.

The one on Sunday was among the many that enter the atmosphere at random, which is why there was no prediction for it — unlike the upcoming Perseids meteor shower.

Brown said this one was unrelated to the Perseids.

“The Perseids meteor shower is one of the brighter meteor showers of the year and one of the more numerous producers — quite a lot of meteors — but it is not visible from southern Australia and is best seen from the Northern Hemisphere,” he said.

“So this meteor was definitely unrelated to the Perseids because it was seen in the wrong part of the world at the wrong time of night.”

Monash University planetary geologist Rachel Kirby told the ABC the meteorite is likely to be on the ground west of the Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine area.

“It’s absolutely exciting. Even if we don’t recover the meteorite, and I really hope we do, witnessing these events and actually having lots of members of the public being able to provide their experiences and their observations is absolutely fantastic,” she said.

Brown warned the meteorite is unlikely to be found, so he wouldn’t recommend people go searching for it.

“I’d suggest that is something best left to people with expertise, because the meteorites will be very small and could be in an area of land that’s very large, rocky and covered in foliage. The chances of finding the meteorite just by going out and having a look are pretty slim,” he said.

According to the Royal Observatory, the peak of the Perseids will occur on Tuesday night, but Brown said only a few Australians will be able to see it.

Apart from northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia, he doesn’t recommend trying to view the Perseids.

“There are other meteor showers at other times of the year that are better to see than the Perseids,” he said.