November 28, 2013
A meteor which exploded in the sky over south-east Queensland last night put on a spectacular light show for South Burnett residents.
The meteor was spotted about 7:50pm, streaking from north to south across the sky for 5-10 seconds.
It was seen from northern NSW to Rockhampton, with a flood of reports on the Internet from across the Darling Downs and Bundaberg regions.
Observers in Kingaroy noted it appeared almost overhead, as bright as the moon and totally silent.
As the meteor travelled across the sky, it broke into several pieces.
Astronomer James Barclay, from the Maidenwell Observatory, said he had been contacted by a number of people who had seen the event.
“It’s not space junk, or a UFO or Armageddon … it was basically a large rock coming in at an acute angle,” he said.
He said these types of meteor fireballs are known as “bolides” and are bright enough to be seen during the daylight.
As the meteor passes through the atmosphere, the rock is heated up by friction; the gas inside expands and the meteor shatters into smaller pieces which are then burned up.
“It’s basically the same sort of thing as happened over Russia, but on a smaller scale,” James said.
In February this year, a large meteor – believed to be a near-Earth asteroid – exploded in the air over Chelyabinsk, sending out a shockwave which damaged buildings and injured about 1500 people.
James said the latest meteor made no sound so it could not have been very big.
He said bolides were rare but did happen from time to time.
A few years ago, he had watched one come in over the Bunya Mountains and explode.
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Some of the descriptions of last night’s event from The Latest World Meteor Reports website:
Justin (Kingaroy) – Really bright white with a long tail. The tip looked like about 4 pieces. As bright as the moon. Lots of bits falling off and burning up. My son said he saw some more a couple of hours later
Kellie (Rockhampton) – Facing NE. Travelled from left to right. White light appeared with a long tail. As bright as a firework, brighter than any other stars in the sky. The tail began fragmenting with bits shooting off as it travelled across the sky. Seemed to be flying very low.
David Campin (Eumundi) – Moon surface brightness, very intense. Significant fragmentation, at least ten major pieces. Very spectacular. The item was a stream of separate particles leaving a great trail of sparkles, it eventually disappeared, burnt out?
Vicky Fletcher (Logan) – Bright as the moon and same colour as it too. The tail was like fireworks, flashes, lights then faded out. I couldn’t take my eyes off it because it looked so beautiful. Nothing I have ever seen before .
Kidd (Springfield Lakes) – White, gold, orange. Three larger brightly lit chunks followed by long bright tail and some smaller sparks. Saw it while driving. Brother saw it out the right passenger window. We stopped the car immediately and continued to watch it through the front windscreen. It travelled from extreme right to left as viewed through the windscreen until it burnt out.
Tony Smith (Mooloolaba) – Many trailing fiery parts. Slow and low, no noise, spectacular and impressive.
Jamie Martin (Lower Bottle Creek) – There were two separate meteors, one directly in front of the other. The front of the meteor was black in colour, darker than the night sky, with the back ends of the meteor on fire. The tails were kilometres long. You could see the beginning of each tail looked like burning balls/fragments of the meteor. It was so very low in the sky. We have no obstruction to our view of the sky (on top of a hill) so we saw it from the far North, to the far South. The front of it was dark, and the back half was on fire. Like bright white fireworks. The were fragments at the back of both meteors. It looked like two huge burning rocks flying thru the sky at amazing speeds. It was close enough to see the outline of the meteors, and the individual debri behind burning. Every line in the tail was perfectly straight.
Sharon (Bundaberg) – Bright as Venus. It appeared to be one main stream with two smaller pieces break off.
Stephanie (Thagoona) – No sound. Seemed very close to earth. White light with wide misty trail. Same as surrounding stars. Just slowly fading. Looked like a horizontal shooting star.
Jessica (Caloundra) – No sound. Yellow with a bright fragmented tail. Very bright similar to the moon. Parts falling from behind. Was very close. Started off similar to a firework and disappeared as it moved further south.
Lara (Blacksoil) – Large ball with orange followed by long streaky tail. As bright as the moon. Fragments were falling off and appeared to disintegrate as it carried through the sky. Large meteorite was observed travelling extremely low over the highway. Initially thought it was a RAAF plane going back to base that had set off its decoys, then realised it wasn’t a plane.
Dannii (Purga) – It was so bright it caught my eye. Ball of flames with a tail, about 1.5m in length. I could see the sparks coming off it! No sound at all. Very bright. Looked like someone had set a cricketball on fire and thrown it over my head. It was starting to disintegrate above me. Embers were falling off it.
Mark (Bundaberg) – Orange like fire. Broke into three parts. Silent and huge.
Mark (Forest Glen) – Bright yellow, splitting into cluster. Bright. Looked like a white or yellow flair at first. Broke into about 4 or 5 pieces. Amazing to see. Great experience.
Kellie (Hervey Bay) – White, no sound. Very bright. Large body with 8+ fragments. Flatter trajectory like flying not falling. Amazing!
Mark (Brisbane) – Red main body with yellowish tail. Started as one moving light, fragmented into two clusters. Larger cluster at the top, maybe 20-30 fragments, smaller cluster at the bottom, maybe 5-10 fragments. Awesome. Scared the kids a little bit!
Kevin (Chambers Flat) – Large orange ball which broke into a number of smaller ones as it travelled. No sound. As bright as a near full moon, but orange. Amazing experience! Never seen anything like this before.
