Debris from a Russian rocket landed on Earth near southern Australia on Monday night (August 7), surprising local residents.
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The crashed rocket caused an explosion and a noise that shook homes across Victoria, as reported by 7 News Australia. Victoria is a southern state of Australia, and the country's second largest city after Melbourne.
The Russian rocket debris was briefly in space. It was the third part of a Soyuz that had launched earlier in the day, carrying a Glonass, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
That mission launched at 9:20 a.m. EDT (1320 GMT) Monday from the Plesetsk in northwestern Russia and followed a southeasterly trajectory toward space. The mission was successful.
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The third piece of the Soyuz reentered atmosphere , southeast of Tasmania, over the vast ocean at around 10 a.m.
The debris from the Russian rocket that fell in Australia was not the last piece of the Soyuz, known as Fregat. The vehicle continues to carry the satellite to its expected orbit.
The Soyuz's impact on the atmosphere was extraordinary, with its speed reaching several kilometres per second, said Michael Brown, an associate professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Monash University in Melbourne.
"Space debris re-entry is sometimes confused with meteors, which are also spectacular, but are usually much shorter events, as they fall into the atmosphere at much higher speeds," Brown said in an emailed statement about Monday's event.
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"It is possible that small pieces of the rocket crashed on land or at sea, but it is rare for space debris to damage property," he added.
