Today in news reassuring us that Bruce Willis won’t yet have to sacrifice his life to ensure the survival of the human race, scientists say the meteor-like fireball seen illuminating the skies of Australia last night was not in fact the ultimate form of Jean Grey, a meteor, or a highjacked airplane but an ejected piece of space junk from a Russian rocket which was used to launch a weather satellite.
Fairfax reports: “NASA issued an alert on Thursday saying a seven-metre, three-tonne, cylindrical object would plunge to Earth over Victoria and Tasmania, said Professor Brian Schmidt, an astronomer at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University. “Orbits of these [pieces of space junk] is monitored quite closely,” he said. “This one was decaying rapidly and the prediction of the path was confirmed, because everyone saw it.”
The object was the “third-stage” of the Soyuz rocket used on July 8 to launch Russia’s second Meteor-M weather satellite, quashing beliefs it was a meteorite. Residents of Cobar, in western NSW, reported hearing a sonic boom after a five minute delay, which indicated the object disintegrated within 100 kilometres of the town, said Professor Schmidt.
ICYMI, this is what it looked like…
Via SMH
