3 days ago
Meteor flashes through skies in Sydney as Aurora Australis seen across southern NSW
A bright flash of light that briefly lit up the Sydney sky on Sunday night was not a rogue Vivid installation but is believed to have been a meteor.
Sydney resident Tom McCallister said he was waiting at traffic lights about 6pm when he saw the light appear in the sky.
"I was luckily on the ball and had my phone to hand to quickly capture the last few seconds of its flight."
Australian National University astrophysicist Brad Tucker said it was definitely a meteor as it flashed a blue-green colour and was travelling faster than space debris does when it is typically seen falling towards Earth.
"Meteors have lots of iron and nickel, when it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere you get to see it as burning as a blue-green colour," Dr Tucker said.
"It would have been a good-sized meteor, maybe anywhere between a tennis and basketball sized," Dr Tucker said.
It capped off a busy week for star-gazers, who have been treated to clear views of the Aurora Australis on the east coast.
Joe Cali captured the pink glow in the night sky from a property outside Young in the NSW Riverina region.
"It put on an entertaining show for south eastern Australia for 6 hours from the end of twilight until around midnight," Mr Cali told 702 ABC Radio Sydney.
"At its brightest a pink glow with some vertical pillars of light were visible to the naked eye.
"For other parts of the night, the brightness reduced and you could only see it as a pale grey glow with my night vision."
Dr Tucker said the especially visible auroras were down to a strong solar storm ejected from the sun hitting the Earth.
"The bigger the storm that leaves the Sun, the more likely the aurora is to be on Earth and the stronger the aurora is," Dr Tucker said.
Dr Tucker said the Sun was in the peak of a 11-year cycle of solar activity, leading to the stronger auroras that could be seen as far north as northern New South Wales.
"This year and last year have been very active periods from the sun which is quite rare."
