Since the famous Green Comet “visited” us last February, we haven’t stopped observing the sky. In all these months, we’ve been able to witness several eclipses, supermoons, meteor showers, and even the appearance of another comet. And if this seems like not enough, add to it the mysterious event that took place tonight in the skies of Australia.
Citizens of the Australian city of Melbourne witnessed a mysterious and bright object resembling a comet streaking through their skies in the middle of the night. This event became the talk of social media in Australia, where news of this “comet” quickly spread.
But was it really a comet or even a meteorite? The answer is clear: no. According to 9News, the Australian Space Agency announced that this mysterious comet-like object was actually the remnants of a Russian rocket.
“It is likely the remnants of a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket reentering Earth’s atmosphere,” the space agency stated.
“The launch of the Soyuz-2 rocket took place from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the early afternoon. According to Russian authorities, the launch placed a next-generation global navigation satellite ‘GLONASS-K2’ into orbit,” the space agency reported in a statement.
The space agency also confirmed that they were aware of this launch and that “the remnants of the rocket were expected to safely reenter the atmosphere over the ocean off the southeast coast of Tasmania.”
The fairly certain hypothesis that it is space debris is also supported by Alan Duffy, an astronomer from the University of Swinburne: “What we are seeing is a large, extended flash of light. It burns for 30-40 seconds. It’s breaking apart. All of that tells me it’s space junk. It’s not a small natural rock in space (a meteor).”
According to Duffy, even though the light appeared to be much closer to Earth than in other astronomical events, it actually passed “tens of kilometers above” the ground at a minimum.
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