Moment beaming bright light' flashes across Queensland sky

Jim Robertson was driving home on a quiet Queensland street last night when a “bright beaming light” suddenly flashed across the sky.

People from across Queensland have reported seeing bright blue and green flashes in the sky, followed by a boom.

Born and bred in Towsnville, Robertson said he had never seen anything like it before.

“There it was, it was a couple of seconds,” he told 9news.com.au.

“We just thought, ‘What the hell is that? Are we being evaded, was it a plane crash, was it space junk?’

He added the streaking light was “quite large”. 

“It’s something you don’t expect driving home,” Robertson said.

“This thing was so huge and the light was just so bright. There was a plane coming in at the same time, so those pilots would have had a great view.

“It was a fluke experience that we were lucky enough to get on the dashcam.” 

In another video shared with 9News, Marcello Avolio captured what he called a “fire ball” in the sky.

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The still quiet of the night was suddenly disrupted with a blinding flash. 

Australian National University Astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker confirmed the item was “definitely” a meteor.”

“This was a bit of space rock essentially, probably broken off an asteroid in the asteroid belt, the area between Mars and Jupiter,” he said.

“As it hit the earth’s atmosphere, it created this bright flash and show in the sky.”

Tucker said the meteor was travelling anywhere between 100,000 and 150,000 km/h.

“The blue-green colour is iron and nickel on the meteor heating up,” he said.

“It breaks apart and as it breaks apart, that’s what gives us that flash and sonic boom that people heard and saw.

“Light travels faster than sound, so when the meteor hits, you see the bright flash – but what people don’t realise is that this thing is probably nowhere near them.”