20.10.2023
Doreen and Mernda residents describe seeing flash of light followed by ‘massive explosion’ on Wednesday night
The origin of a mysterious loud bang and explosion heard on Wednesday night by Melbourne locals in Doreen and Mernda is yet to be confirmed but experts believe it was likely from a meteor.Photograph: David Crosling/AAP
Mystery surrounds a loud boom that was heard across Melbourne’s north on Wednesday night.
A flash of light, followed by a bang-like noise, was captured on CCTV footage posted to social media by a resident from Doreen who heard the sound while getting out of his car at about 9pm.
Locals have taken to social media in search for answers on what has been called a “massive explosion”, with some locals speculating it came from a meteorite.
“Ok, massive explosion wasn’t how I expected tonight to go!”, one user from the Mernda area wrote. “What in the world was that?!”
Another user replied, speculating the “loud af” sound came from the roadworks.
One local said “our whole house shook”. Sharing the CCTV footage posted on a local page, they guessed “maybe a meteorite?”
The origin of this sound and light is yet to be confirmed.
Dr Brad Tucker, an astronomer from the Australian National University, told 3AW that the “flash associated with this boom” hints at it likely coming from a meteor.
“It would have been a bit of an astroid broke off, travelled through space, [and] hit the Earth’s atmosphere,” Tucker said.
Due to the speed at which the material would be travelling, a “sonic boom” would be heard when it hit the Earth’s atmosphere, he said.
“Essentially all this energy [is] being released in the sky, and the meteor or asteroid fragment [is] breaking apart.”
The size of the material determines how far the sonic boom would be heard. “The brightness and the explosion will all be relative to size,” Tucker said. “That kind of gives us the clue this was probably on the smaller side, the fact it wasn’t heard over larger areas.”
The meteor could have been anywhere between 10cm and 40cm, he estimated. “These things are so small to detect, we don’t know of a lot of them [enter Earth’s atmosphere].”
But if a meteor was “tens of metres” big, Tucker said, it could release “the equivalent of a nuclear bomb’s worth of energy in the atmosphere breaking apart”.
“So we do have to monitor and worry about those ones.”
In August, a similarly mysterious beam of light crossed Victoria’s night skyand burned for almost a minute before it caused a loud boom. Australia’s space agency said it was incinerating space junk.
Sydney locals were baffled by reports of a mysterious explosion heard in 2021, which could not have its origin identified. Authorities received multiple reports from residents saying they heard an “explosion” but found no evidence of one.
Quelle: The Guardian