A fireball (stock image) is believed to have crashed into the ocean just off the coast of central Queensland on Monday night

Security cameras managed to capture the bright flash of light that was seen as far south as Hervey Bay and as far north as Yeppoon

Social media was flooded with reports of the bright flash light in the sky

Quelle: LookNews

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Meteor described as 'mini sun' streaks over central Queensland

A bright light and loud explosion in the sky over central and southern Queensland last night was probably a fiery meteor, experts believe.

A number of Queenslanders have contacted ABC Local Radio to say they witnessed what appeared to be a fireball streak across the sky about 8.30pm on Monday night.

Emerald resident Jim said he was on the phone at the time and was shocked by what he saw.

"I just went, 'wow!' It was just this really bright ball in the sky, it was like a mini sun," he said.

Dale from Gracemere said the whole sky lit up.

"When I first saw it, it was just this really bright ball-type thing and then all of a sudden a big orange tail, I thought it was like the after burner of a jet plane," he said.

"I was gobsmacked."

'They build up pressure and explode'

Astro Space News editor and publisher Dave Reneke said he thought people had witnessed a fireball.

"I've seen two of these in my life. They're pretty rare, they're unusual sort of objects and they are a meteor," he said.

"This is happening about 70-80 kilometres above your head — it's a meteor that catches on fire."

 

He said the bright light was caused by the meteorite exploding as it entered the atmosphere.

"These are moving at 30 to 60 kilometres a second when they pass through the atmosphere — they get very hot," Mr Reneke said.

"This could have been the size of a small suitcase, probably not much bigger I'd say.

"They build up pressure and heat inside and they simply explode."

Some residents reported hearing an explosion, which Mr Reneke said was further evidence of a fireball.

"I'm hearing it with these reports, one, there's a sonic boom — this is normal because when they explode, they really do explode like a big fire cracker. And two, the colours. This is what I believe it was. The meteorological people seem to agree with that too," he said.

"The only other thing that it might have been but I doubt it very much, that it was returning space junk, but space junk doesn't have the characteristics of what I've said."

'The crystal started tingling'

 

Tannum Sands resident Amanda said she was in bed when she was alerted by vibrations.

"I put the cup of water onto a crystal tray and I lay down on the bed and seconds after lying on the bed, the crystal started tingling," she said.

"My husband said to me 'did you just do something with that cup?' and I said 'no, I just put it on the tray'.

"Before we got up out of bed, you could hear a noise outside — it was like a bomb noise outside.

"It sounded like something had hit the side of the house."

Mr Reneke said meteorites hit Earth all the time, but often went unnoticed as they broke up in the outer atmosphere.

"The Earth gets hit by 100 tonnes of meteorite activity every day. While you are and I are driving around doing our shopping, going outside, socialising, we're getting hit by debris," he said.

Quelle: abc

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Bright flash of orange lights up the sky and houses shake as people report a fireball caused by 'space junk' crashing to Earth over Queensland

• Thousands of people reported a bright flash of orange lighting up sky 
• Residents in central Queensland saw the light and felt a large tremor
• It's believed it could have been a fireball crashing  to Earth
• Initial reports it may have been an earthquake have been ruled out 

 

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