Southeastern Australia was light up Thursday night by what was at first taken to be an exceptionally bright meteor . However , multiple lines of grounds advise it was more likely from a stage of a   Russian Soyuz rocket burning up in the atmosphere .

At 9:45pm local prison term , commentator over a 2000 km stretch from Tasmania to New South Wales reported   the luminance , with photos and videos rapidlyappearing online . The objective broke up near Cobar in fundamental New South Wales .

Such a long flight of stairs track is unusual for an extraterrestrial objective , but more in keeping with the flatter trajectory of space rubble .

Ken Le Marquand , Chief Executive of the Astronomical Society of Victoria told AAP the object was likely to be stilted , rather than a small asteroid . " The images I ’ve seen show a lot of unlike colours , " Mr Le Marquand told AAP . " When you get mass of colors it usually means there ’s different materials in there , man - made material . "

Neuroscientist Dr Emma Burrows , who saw the physical object as it passed over Melbourne said , “ It was n’t quick enough to be a meteor . It was like a plane crashing . ”

Simon Tiller , a resident of the outer Melbourne suburb of Frankston depict the visible radiation as turn downhearted as it approached the horizon   judge the object took 20 seconds before disappear to the north .

The space vehicle possibility was backed up by no lesser source thanNobel Prize get ahead physicist , Professor Brian Schmidt , whotweeted a linkto the flight of the rocket thatlaunched   seven satellitesthe day before .

Burrows was not the only one to think a plane might be in trouble .

The third microscope stage of the Soyuz   rocket was 7 m long and weigh three tonnes . While NASA gauge a piece of space debris reenters the Earth ’s aura at least once a day , most are much smaller , and grueling to distinguish from meteoroid . return space junk rarely poses a threat to people , and no one has yet been hurt ,   although the Shire of Esperance   send out NASAa account for cleaning up bits of Skylabthat reached the ground . However , orbital rubble represents a major and growing threat to satellites .

Alistair Tait of Monash University is part of a team attempting to site the debris from the skyrocket . He has asked anyone with images to dog them   # AusFireBall , @FireballsSky . Reports , especially from those who saw it towards the end of its flight way of life , should be made using an app that can be downloaded fromhttp://www.fireballsinthesky.com.au .

Anyone who might have   clue to the landing place situation should contact Tait onearth-atmosphere-environment@monash.edu .