Meteor magic

Even in the year 2023 the beauty and wonder of space has us looking up in awe

It would have been an object no bigger than a half-metre in size, but when a meteor came crashing through the Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday night, all of North Queensland was left briefly speechless as the night sky lit up.

Thousands of years in the past, that same sight might have been considered an omen of doom or a sign from the gods, signalling a good harvest to come.

The meteor could have been a major geo-political event with a dose of superstition causing one heir to a tribe being passed on for the next.

Now, we can explain away what we see thanks to painstaking work by scientists.

Night turned to day with the characteristic blue-green light that comes from the iron and nickel in the meteor. Both burned up as it travelled at speeds in the tens of thousands of kilometres an hour, breaking through the atmosphere.

It’s the correct answer, but admittedly it’s not as satisfying as some of the theories we’ve heard today — UFOS, hypersonic missile tests, the return of Gozer from Ghostsbusters, Superman appearing to save Townsville from crime, or the Cowboys’ title dreams crashing down to Earth.

We’d like to believe the meteor was a planned part of a very successful weekend for Tropic Fiesta, a cherry on top of the cake of smorgasbord of free live music that graced the CBD over the weekend, and that the Cowboys can pull off an unlikely comeback.

For astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker, the meteor was just another that hits our planet on a monthly basis, with most of them landing in the ocean.

But for North Queensland it was a night to remember.

People in Croydon reported their homes shaking, others heard the sonic boom.

It’s very easy to forget the vastness of space when we’re in our daily lives, but moments like this can remind us of how small we are.

Thousands upon thousands of years of us trying our best to understand the mysteries of space and we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Some things never change though — meteors are still magical to watch, whether we understand them or not.