* Astronomy

Fireball seen over Australian skies was space debris from Russian rocket

The fireball that streaked across the skies of south-eastern Australia on Thursday night was an ejected piece of a Russian rocket used to launch a weather satellite, a leading astronomer says.
NASA issued an alert on Thursday saying a seven-metre, three-tonne, cylindrical object would plunge to Earth over Victoria and Tasmania, said Professor Brian Schmidt, an astronomer at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University.
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