Science has arrived just in time to throw a big ol’ bucket of water all over a burning hot mystery that had residents across Far-North Queensland, NT and NSW certain they’d just witnessed extra terrestrial life. A celestial event that lit up the sky has been explained away, mind you the explanation is still pretty cool.
On Monday night, hundreds of people reportedly gazed upwards, mouths agape as a strange light appeared in the sky. News of the sighting first broken when Shauna Royes reported into the FNQ ABC Facebook Page with a photo she took of the object from the Julia Creek caravan park. Royes said there were around 160 other people with her at the time.
“It was quite a bright, unusual light with a tail on it. It was travelling north-east and we watched it for probably two or three minutes before it faded out.” Royes tells ABC, “We had no idea what it was. It was really unusual.”
Other sightings were reported in from Cape Crawford in the NT, Rockhampton and as far as New South Wales.
But, despite our hopes and dreams, the sighting was anything but, or so says science. University of Southern Queensland astrophysics professor Jonti Horner has gone through the images and video taken of the object, and spoke to ABC about her findings.
“My first thought was it’s a meteor, but looking at the footage it can’t be a meteor, it’s not something in the Earth’s atmosphere at all. It looks like a rocket, something orbiting the Earth doing a prolonged engine burn.”
This may seem like the type of convenient tale spun to distract the masses from the truth, but yeah, nah, this checks out.
Those who have been paying attention will know that just this week, India launched its second rocket to The Moon, Chandrayaan-2. Australia, like many other nations, were fortunate enough to witness it’s ascent into the unknown.
“In some ways that’s even cooler,” said Professor Horner. “You are seeing something that is exciting and it’s worth remembering that we are now in an era that it’s not just the US and Russia, we have China on the moon and India going, it really is a global endeavour.”
Turns out it’s fairly common to witness such a phenomenon, and similar sightings have been happening since Apollo 11 50 years ago. Most recently, onlookers may have seen such an occurrence when Elon Musk launched his car into orbit.
“The light you are seeing is a combination of the rocket burning, but you’ve also got the gas being ejected from the rocket, the gas is spreading out in space and reflecting spotlight as well, so it’s like it creates a cloud in space that gradually disperses with the rocket at the end of it.”
Hmm…fair enough, Science. We may have been out manoeuvred this time, my fellow believers, but our moment will come.
Until then, trust nobody.
Except Professors, Always trust them.
