Flaming wreckage of Russian spacecraft lights up sky over Melbourne | Tech News

Space has a major trash problem, but sometimes, as the wreckage of humans’ endeavours beyond our world come tumbling back to Earth, it can put on a bit of a show.

Last night residents of Melbourne, Australia, and surrounds were treated to a spectacular sight as the burning remnants of what is thought to be a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket blazed across the night sky above the states of Victoria and Tasmania.

The Australian Space Agency quickly put out a statement regarding the origins of the object, which some thought was a meteor.

‘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 said.

‘Launch of the Soyuz-2 rocket occurred from Plesetsk Cosmodrome earlier in the evening. According to Russian authorities the launch placed a new generation ‘GLONASS-K2’ global navigation satellite into orbit.’

The agency confirmed they had been given notice of the launch, and expected any remnants of the rocket that made it through the atmosphere to land in the ocean off the south-east coast of Tasmania, an island state off the southern coast of the mainland.

‘The Australian Space Agency will continue to monitor the outcomes of this re-entry with our government partners,’ it added.

As well as capturing the sight on their phones, some Melbourne residents claimed they heard a sonic boom and felt their houses shake. Although travelling much slower than a meteor, the wreckage was still fast enough to break the sound barrier.

Explaining the event, Flinders University associate professor Alice Gorman said: ‘The second stage of the [Soyuz] rocket, which weighs 105 tonnes and is 25 metres long, was cast off at extremely high altitude after its fuel had been expended. Many Melburnians saw the rocket streaking across the sky as it broke into pieces, each one continuing to burn in a spectacular fireworks show. Any surviving parts of the rocket would have ended up in the sea.

‘There were also reports of a sonic boom and people felt their houses shake. Although it was moving much slower than a meteor, the rocket was still fast enough to break the sound barrier. When the US Skylab space station fell back to Earth over Western Australia in 1979, there was also a sonic boom and farmers reported animals being agitated.

‘It’s not unheard of for Soyuz rocket stages to re-enter over Australia. In May 2020, an identical rocket stage from the launch of a military satellite from Plesetsk was witnessed burning up by Victorians and Tasmanians.’

Earlier this year scientists called for a legally-binding treaty to protect Earth from the dangers of space debris, warning there are around 100 trillion pieces of junk orbiting the planet that are not being tracked.

Last week a large metal dome that washed up on a beach in Perth, Western Australia, was identified as the expended third-stage of a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

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