MARS in opposition was not the only thing shining brightly in Sunday night’s sky.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Skygazers say they saw something unidentified flying over Goulburn just after 9.30pm. Was it a comet? Was it a meteorite? Was it space junk?
Eyewitness Tom Sebo was looking north-west from Macquarie St when he saw the object.
He said the unknown object was moving southwest, “burning, and stuff was falling off it”.
“I watched it move across the sky for about 90 seconds to two minutes,” Mr Sebo said.
“I would have taken a photo, but my phone was dead at the time.”
He put out a Facebook call and people replied, confirming they had seen what he described.
The ANU’s Mt Stromlo astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker said it was likely the object was a meteor.
“If it [was] burning for one to two minutes, it would have been a good-sized meteor,” Dr Tucker said.
He estimated it was about 1m across: “Any bigger, it would have made an explosion when it entered the atmosphere.
“If it was any smaller, it would have burnt up more quickly.”
Dr Tucker said the orange colour described by observers meant the meteor had sodium in it.
“If it had been blue-green, it means it had magnesium; and yellow means iron,” he said.
Dr Tucker said about 200 to 300 tonnes of debris (like meteors) crashed into Earth every day.
“Small to medium-size meteors, like this one, are actually quite common, at least once a day,” he said.
Dr Tucker checked the observatory databases for possible space junk entries on Sunday night.
He confirmed there was a space junk entry above Goulburn, but earlier, and moving in the opposite direction.
“It was a few hours before that time . . . in the opposite direction, so it is unlikely that what people saw was space junk,” he said.
The ‘Mars opposition’ is when the planet shines most brightly, usually at the end of the month.
During the opposition, Mars and the sun are on opposite sides of Earth. As the sun is setting, Mars is rising, illuminated by the sun’s rays.
The Mars opposition happens once every two years (or 26 months), about the time the Red Planet takes to completely orbit the sun.
This Sunday will be the closest that Mars has been to the Earth since 2005.
NASA estimates it will be 47.4 million miles from the Earth.