(ETH) – Victorians are reporting a mysterious fireball seen moving across the night sky on Friday night that some experts are saying was likely space junk burning up after entering the Earth’s atmosphere, Although no official explanation has yet been given to the identity of the object.

According to the report, The bright object was spotted in Bendigo moving east towards Daylesford and beyond and was also visible from parts of northern Tasmania. Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland Jonti Horner stated that the slow speed of the object pointed to the likelihood it was space junk.

“The slow speed, about 6 kilometers per second, is a very telltale sign that it is space junk,” he said. He went on to state that extra-terrestrial material such as fragments of a comet or asteroid would have moved much more quickly through the sky.  Professor Horner went on to state that it was possible the object was part of a rocket used to launch a Russian satellite several hours earlier.


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