Melbourne witnessed an event on Monday night where a flaming debris was spotted in the sky. Amidst all talks of alien existence, it was a question if the flaming thing flying across the sky was a meteor or something related to aliens. It sparked a storm of social media posts questioning the event.
Multiple reports from Victoria and Tasmania mentioned a bright light marking across the sky and flame-like trails. Some people thought of the object as a meteor.
However, the Australian Space Agency has clarified about the event and has said that the ‘flaming object’ is likely the remnants of a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket which might have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
According to astronomer Alan Duffy, the colours generated by the object speeding across the sky showed that it was man-made. Duffy also mentioned that the pieces were coming off the object and were burning which meant that the object is very large and is travelling at a high speed, which he mentioned to be 7 kilometers per second.
In a series of tweets, the Australian Space Agency confirmed the occurrence of the event and that it was the remnants of the rocket launched by Russia which was used to launch a satellite. The Russian authorities said that the launch has placed a new generation ‘GLONASS-K2’ global satellite into orbit. The Australian Space Agency also wrote on twitter that this launch was notified and the remains of the rocket were chalked out to re-enter the atmosphere safely into the ocean off the south-east coast of Tasmania.
Some people witnessed a loud bang which was a sonic boom. Duffy also said that the sounds heard at night were reportedly ‘extraordinary’.
The space agency stated that it will continue to monitor the re-entry outcomes with government partners.