Mysterious streak of light illuminated skies over Australia. Now there’s an explanation

A long streak of light confused Australians as it soared across the night sky — but now experts have solved the mystery.

The Australian Space Agency confirmed it was Russian space junk the morning after it appeared.

“We have determined the flashes of light seen across Melbourne skies overnight were likely the remnants of a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” the agency wrote in a statement.

The liftoff happened just before 4:30 p.m. Aug. 7 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome spaceport in western Russia, according to Everyday Astronaut. The rocket delivered a GLONASS-K2 global navigation satellite into Earth’s orbit, then fell back to Earth.

GLONASS is a Russian alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS), used by both the military and civilians.

By the next morning, the American Meteor Society had received reports of a “fireball” appearing over areas of Australia and Tasmania.

“It was ten times better than the Melbourne videos online…I thought it was a plane at first with its lights on coming towards me,” a report from a Tasmanian resident said. “I went out onto the decking and watched in awe as it all traveled straight over me. It would have been amazing to video it, but I was just dumbfounded!”

Another report from Tasmania said it looked like “multiple glowing objects splitting” as it traveled across the sky.

Reports and videos show the object fragmenting as it re-entered the atmosphere. The Australian Space Agency said the launch was planned, and they knew the rocket would crash into the ocean off the coast of Tasmania.

This story was originally published August 8, 2023 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Mysterious streak of light illuminated skies over Australia. Now there’s an explanation."