Wow, this is really amazing: thousands of Australians watched in awe as an eerily glowing ball of light passed overhead a couple of nights ago. It was quite the mystery, but it’s now understood that it was a Russian booster rocket that had failed in orbit last year. It still had some fuel in it, and for reasons unknown it exploded while passing hundreds of miles over Australia.
Spaceweather.com has frakking INCREDIBLE images of it. Check this out:
This animated series of images, taken by Robert McNaught (yes, that McNaught) shows the debris cloud as it passed overhead. Click the image to go to the larger version at Spaceweather. It’s really stunning.
It looks like eventually the orbits of these pieces will degrade, and the debris will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. That will be quite a show!
February 21st, 2007 at 9:37 am
Cool. Could it have exploded due to the heat of re-entry?
February 21st, 2007 at 10:05 am
See? UFOs ARE real!
I mean, it was unidentified at the time.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:15 am
Did anyone else notice the meteor shoot by in the 12th or 13th frame? It’s just to the right of the rocket’s halo travelling top to bottom.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:31 am
Oh goody. Something went blowy uppy,,,
If there was fuel on board, there must have also been some liquid O2 to facilitate the explosion. Dang, what a waste. Too bad someone couldn’t have recovered the booster and drained the fuel and O2 for use on the space station. Could have saved quite a bit of money on launch costs,,,
Neat show, though,,,except that now there are a bunch of pieces speeding around the globe at 17,500 mph.
DUCK!!!
(and I don’t mean quack,,,)
Gary 7
February 21st, 2007 at 10:35 am
So, should we expect a crackpot group/website/FOX documentary to use this imagery as proof of alien spaceships?
February 21st, 2007 at 10:36 am
Explanation of the bubble traveling with the booster:
Scotty: “Captain, the engines are backfiring. We’ll have to buffer ourselves from the atmosphere. The ship can’t take much more o’ this!”
Kirk: “Shields up!”
February 21st, 2007 at 11:08 am
What??? Nobody told me to look for this! $#@*& You see, everything come to Australia.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:13 am
NOT for reasons unknown. We set down on Company orders to get this thing that destroyed my crew, and your expensive ship
February 21st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
[...] Op maandag 19 februari zijn vele waarnemers in Australië getuige geweest van de explosie in de ruimte van een Russische draagraket. In eerste instantie had men geen idee wat er zich daar precies hoog in de lucht afspeelde. Men zag een soort van vlammende pluim, die zich langzaam over de hemel bewoog. Sommigen zagen het verschijnsel wel zo’n 35 minuten. En op een gegeven moment explodeerde het zelfs. De volgende dag bleek uit onderzoek van satellietexpert Daniel Deak dat het blijkt te gaan om zogenaamde Russische Briz-M draagraket, die op 28 februari 2006 de Arabsat-4A communicatie- satelliet in een baan om de Aarde moest brengen. Het ging fout bij de lancering, de Briz-M kwam half gevuld nog met brandstof in de ruimte terecht en de satelliet kwam in een verkeerde baan terecht. En bijna een jaar later ging de Briz-M kennelijk weer actief worden, met de explosie als fatale afloop. De explosie werd niet alleen door velen gefotografeerd, maar ook nog gefilmd door de Australische waarnemer Rob McNaught. Ehh….McNaught, kennen wij die naam niet van één of andere komeet die op het zuidelijk halfrond schittert van helderheid en die hier op het noordelijk halfrond schittert door afwezigheid? Yep, diezelfde ontdekker van de komeet McNaught heeft de explosie van de Briz-M gefilmd (en gefotografeerd ongetwijfeld). In het hieronderstaande filmpje staat rechts de heldere ster Spica. Bij het Orbital Debris Office op het Johnson Space Center van de NASA zijn ze wel geschrokken van de explosie, want al die duizenden brokstukken die daarmee in de ruimte slingeren kunnen wellicht een risico betekenen voor het internationale ruimtestation ISS. Hiernaast de McNaught-video van de briz-M (even aanklikken voor de grotere versie, 4 Mb). Nou weet ik het zeker: ik ga naar Australië emigreren! Bron: Spaceweather.com + Bad Astronomy Blog. [...]
February 21st, 2007 at 1:08 pm
What is this halo travelling with the debris? Is it made of very small debris? Recondensing water vapor? The upper part of the halo is brighter, is it because of sunlight hitting recondensed ice crystals in a certain orientation?
Or is it simply a lens effect due to the brightness of the booster?
February 21st, 2007 at 1:32 pm
There seems to be a yellow comet tail like effect in the picture which could be explained be air resistance as the object moves throught it. What about that big white cloud? That shape so round and extending so far infront, shouldn’t it have an oblong shape or some other shape as it interacts with the air? Is this a light effect caused from lenses in the camera?
February 21st, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Gary Ansorge Says: “If there was fuel on board, there must have also been some liquid O2 to facilitate the explosion.”
You are absolutely correct, but when most people say “fuel” they really mean “propellants.” That’s because earthbound vehicles only have to carry the fuel half with them.
I think the confusion in some of the later posts comes from a misunderstanding. This vehicle isn’t reentering, it’s still on orbit and the light is from the explosion/fire on board from the propellants. The cloud of combustion products and other outgassing would, naturally, continue with it in orbit. Not sure about the streaky parts travelling with it.
- Jack
February 21st, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I thought the meteor crossing was pretty cool.
I think the halo is some sort of optical effect.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
What an amazing starfield. I need to find some dark skies.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Got all excited for a moment thinking it was the flaming meteor my girlfriend saw off the south coast of Australia, but ours was on Saturday night, and this exploding booster was on Monday 19th.
Still, meteors are also quite cool
February 21st, 2007 at 10:53 pm
kingnor, great reference!
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:58 am
Very cool!
Mr. McNaught sure has good seeing conditions to catch a sky like that, BTW!
I saw that meteor you refer to, Josh. It could also be space junk of some type.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:20 am
Yes, but if so, it is unlikely to be space junk associated with the main space junk in this image. It is on a perpendicular path to the main object. Also, the speed is much different, consistent with being a faster object, i.e. a meteor.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:05 pm
I’m trying to get a feel for how fast this was moving. Anybody know how much time between frames, and how big this was in the sky?
Seems like Oz has had some great skies lately.
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 am
Swedish amateur astronomer H-G Lindberg just mailed me to say that this looked exactly like something he saw in October 1985. Apparently the same phenomenon was spotted from a Norwegian tanker, and the speculation was that it was some massive Soviet weapon test… More (in Swedish) here.
I wonder how many old UFO reports this could clear up?
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:51 am
Uh-oh, broken link. Try this one instead: More (in Swedish) here.
February 28th, 2007 at 8:06 am
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