‘EXTRAORDINARY’

Space Agency Explains Unsettling, Booming Lights in Sky

The bright display was visible for almost a minute shortly after midnight.

Baffling lights that streaked across the skies over Melbourne early Tuesday morning were likely the remnants of a Russian rocket re-entering the atmosphere, Australia’s space agency said. Bewildered Aussies shared clips of the bright lights as they appeared for nearly a minute after midnight, with some social media users speculating that they were caused by a comet, a meteor, or some kind of space junk. Other locals reported being able to hear a loud sound as the lights passed overhead, which experts attributed to a sonic boom caused by the final remnants of the rocket burning up just a few miles above the ground. The Australian Space Agency said the light show was “likely” the wreckage of a Russian Soyuz rocket that launched a new global navigation satellite into orbit from a cosmodrome near Moscow on Monday evening. Professor Alan Duffy, an astronomer at Swinburne University, told local radio that the display was “really quite extraordinary.”