Australian Space Agency confirms ‘meteor’ over Victoria was a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket

The Australian Space Agency have confirmed what caused the flashes of light seen across Victorian skies that were accompanied with a “loud boom”.

Just before midnight on Monday, the slow-moving ball passed through the sky prompting speculation it could be a meteor, comet or space junk.

On Tuesday afternoon, the space agency said the object is believed to be remnants of a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

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“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 said on social media.

“This launch was notified and remnants of the rocket were planned to safely re-enter the atmosphere into the ocean off the southeast coast of Tasmania.

“We will continue to monitor the outcomes of this re-entry with our government partners.”

While most people posting to social media about the object were in Melbourne, residents in Geelong and Bendigo, and even some observers in Tasmania reported sightings.

“It was sort of like the start of a quake with window rattle but, no ground shake or extended time. Actually scared me,” one person said on Facebook.

Many said it was stunning to witness.

“I was absolutely gobsmacked and mesmerised. I couldn’t take my eyes off it,” one person wrote.

On Tuesday, Swinburne University Astronomer Professor Alan Duffy told 3AW’s Ross and Russel it was the “biggest light show” he’d ever seen.

“What we’re seeing is a large flash of light extended and it burns up for 30, 40 seconds,” he said.

Astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker told Sunrise he also believed it was space junk as it was quite slow moving and he explained where the “loud boom” people reported hearing might have come from.

“(It’s) essentially having something going from 25,000km/h to very slow, so that creates a sonic boom as it enters, which is what people heard and that rattling felt,” he said.

“Then you can see it fragmenting. So, because it’s a human-made object, as it re-enters the Earth ’s atmosphere it heats up and bits break off.”