Astronomers perplexed by loud bang and green flash over Australian skies

Independent

22-04-2025

A loud bang and a bright green ball of light seen in the skies above Australia have left astronomers perplexed about the source of the strange phenomenon.
The green blob of light appeared in the skies over Queensland Monday night, coinciding with the Lyrids meteor shower as the Earth passed through streams of dust left behind by the comet Thatcher.
It is one of the oldest recorded meteor showers in history, observed and reported as early as 687BC, and is widely witnessed every year around this time in April.
Live camera feeds and dashcam footage captured a momentary bright green glow in the sky above Brisbane and parts of New South Wales.
Some locals also reported hearing a loud boom as they witnessed the green ball of light streak across the sky.
Several Australian media outlets reported that the phenomenon is related to the annual Lyrid meteor shower anticipated to peak this week.
However, astronomers say the bright fireball could be a different celestial phenomenon unrelated to the meteor shower.
'I can say for certain that the fireball was not part of the Lyrid meteor shower – it was much too early in the evening,' astronomer Jonti Horner from the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) told The Independent.
Instead, he suspected the phenomenon was likely caused by space debris, like an asteroid or comet.
Curtin University astronomer Ellie Sansom concurred that the bright green flash was likely not from the meteor shower.
"It was an amazing bright green fireball, definitely something bigger than what we would be expecting from a meteor shower," Dr Sansom told ABC News.
In the southern hemisphere, Lyrid meteors can be seen coming from the north, but the green object was spotted travelling from south to north, she explained.
'Debris in a meteor shower is all moving through space in the same direction, and the meteors that appear from a given shower appear to radiate from a certain point of the night sky,' Dr Horner said.
This point in the sky, called the meteor shower's 'radiant', tells a lot about it.
For instance, if the radiant is below the horizon, it means the part of the Earth one is standing on is facing away from the incoming comet dust.
'So you can't see meteors from that shower,' Dr Horner said.
'It's a bit like if you're in a rainstorm on a very windy day – if you stand with your back to the rain, it will hit the back of your head, but none will hit your face!' he explained.
When the mysterious fireball entered Earth's atmosphere over Queensland on Monday night, the radiant for the Lyrid meteor shower was still well below the horizon.
'So Queensland was facing away from the Lyrid shower, and it is impossible that the fireball was related to the shower,' Dr Horner said.
The strange fireball was likely a different shooting star hitting the Earth's atmosphere and burning up.
'The fireball last night was brighter than the full Moon – and came in very fast – most likely at a speed of 30 or 40 kilometres per second,' the UniSQ astronomer said.
The space rock was visible at an altitude of about 100km (62 miles) and likely exploded about 30km (18 miles) above the ground, causing the loud bang heard by many Australians, he suspects.
'It was visible for just a few seconds - and was probably a bit too small (and moving a bit too fast) to have dropped any fragments to Earth,' Dr Horner said.
While some fragments of the rock may have reached the ground, he suspects they 'would be tiny and hard to spot'.
Scientists have called on witnesses to report their sightings to the International Meteor Organisation to help determine the actual source of the space rock.