Mystery light across Central Queensland skies ‘likely space junk’, Dr Jonti Horner explains

The spectacular light storm that lit up the region’s night sky will become a more common phenomenon, an astrophysicist explains.

Blazing trails of light adorned Central Queensland’s night sky before exploding in a spectacular phenomenon that experts say Queenslanders will have a front-row seat to as it becomes more common.

It was about 11.30pm Friday when pest controller Ty Garton noticed the streams of light while having a beer with his neighbour in Bucasia.

Born and bred Mackay man Mr Garton said he had never seen anything like it, with his mind racing quickly from aliens to missiles.

“We did have a few beers under our belt by then,” Mr Garton said.

“We were thinking, ‘what the hell?’.”

Space junk flying over Dysart on February 25, 2022. Picture: Contributed

He said the larger ball of light entranced them as it raced across the sky, becoming brighter and brighter before “busting up” into three smaller streams.

The pair watched in awe for about one minute, before the light show disappeared.

Mr Garton said they heard a loud “distant” bang that woke his sleeping partner Jackie Smith just moments later.

Ty Garton watched the spectacular light display over his Bucasia home as a space junk soared overhead. His partner Jackie Smith was asleep in bed when she heard a loud but distant bang. Picture: Facebook

University of Southern Queensland astrophysicist Jonti Horner studied the footage of the event.

“It was a really spectacular light show of space junk burning,” Dr Horner said.

Dr Horner said he was able to determine the objects were man-made because of the speed in which they travelled along with other factors such as the depth of their arc.

“There are lots of bits rather than just one,” he said.

He said because man-made space objects often orbited the earth, they came in “relatively slowly”, travelling at about four to six kilometres per second.

“Shooting stars come at a much deeper angle, travelling around 11 to 12 kilometres a second.”

Dr Horner said because of this, the phenomena witnessed across the Central Queensland sky was most likely “a satellite falling apart” or leftover bits of a rocket.

He said the debris would not make it to earth, as the parts would ablate — meaning they would turn from solid to gas — before reaching the ground.

The actual origins of the space junk are unknown, but Dr Horner said it was possible, although statistically unlikely, that it came from some of Elon Musk’s 40 or so satellites that were lost in a solar storm in early February.

Regardless, Dr Horner said Queenslanders could expect to see much more of these incredible light shows in the coming years as more and more technology and missions were sent to space.

Astrobiologist and planetary scientist at the University of Southern Queensland's Centre for Astrophysics professor Jonti Horner. Picture: Contributed

“What goes up must come down,” Dr Horner said.

“There is a lot of junk up there, launching things into space is a bit of a messy business.”

Dr Horner said people on the Eastern Seaboard had a “prime place in the world for seeing this happening”, as most of any controlled landing of space junk was aimed at Point Nemo.

Point Nemo is in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand, Easter Island and Antarctica, marking it as the furthest point from any land on Earth.

Dr Horner said controlled landings at Point Nemo were used for space junk that was too large to ablate.

While its not going to be a daily event, Dr Horner said Queenslanders could expect to see these stunning events up to a few times a year.