Douglas Shire residents stunned as meteor lights up night time sky
AMAZING
Revellers enjoying Carnivale and residents from Cooya Beach to Edmonton, Normanton to Mareeba are still coming to terms with seeing an incredible, bright fireball light up the night time sky.
Around 9.23pm yesterday, night, incredibly turned into day, for a few fleeting moments thanks to the appearance of what a leading expert says was a rare visitor.
"It's most definitely a meteor," Dr Brad Tucker from the Australian National University (ANU) explained.
"The fact that we saw it start from this small thing then getting that big glow and then the sonic boom afterward all point to it being a meteor."
The astrophysicist suggested the falling piece of asteroid was around a metre in size and travelling roughly around 100,000 to 150,000 kilometres per hour.
Reports came in thick and fast from across NQ and FNQ just seconds after the event.
There is growing speculation the land point could be potentially near Croydon in the Gulf Savannah region with some local residents reporting that their houses “vibrated” during the incident. Others have suggested it may have crashed somewhere in the vast Northern Territory.
Officials from the Australian meteor reports Facebook page are currently collating data in an attempt to locate the precise fall location with the page administer excitedly saying “there are meteorites out there waiting to be found”.
Newsport has reached out to the CSIRO space and astronomy centre department for further comment.