Feb 19 Russian Satellite explosion
Exploding Breeze-M rocket body

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While photographing THIS storm an amazing sight presented itself in the heavens above me. I was happily snapping away the lightning show when I happened to glance up and in the sky was a translucent glowing orb! "What the" I thought with amazement. Naturally the camera was pointed skywards and I snapped a few images before the wisps of the storm anvil moved over. This is what I saw.. (crops form the original images)

 

It was about the size of a full moon and added a rather surreal feel tot he evening with the thunderstorm flashing away in the near distance!

So what was it?

Initial thoughts came from Gordon Garrad a NSW astronomer who also captured the object. He believed it to be a rocket burn from a recent launch of Themis. We both posted images to the excellent Space Weather and the real search for an answer began in earnest when it was found out themis happened almost 2 days earlier!

A mystery was born.

This was way out of my league and left the search to those with the resources. Before long an answer presented itself which was as unusal as the sight of the "orb" itself. Satellite expert Daniel Deak managed to match the orbit with a Russian lauched satellite that went awry when launched a year earlier on Feb. 28, 2006. The rocket malfunctioned leaving it int he wrong orbit and still carrying a fuel load. Meanwhile the satellite continued to orbit the earth until Feb 19th 2007. In the early hours of my morning for no apparent reason it exploded as the fuel tanks ruptured This then formed a cloud of fuel and debris that I then saw glowing in the night sky above me. Amazing stuff !!!!

Some useful links

• http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2007/21feb07/palmer2.jpg Flaming plume of the rocket as it crossed the milky way. By Ray Palmer.
• http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2007/20feb07/garradd1.jpg Amazing image as captured by Gordon Garrad.
• http://www.astronautix.com/craft/brizm.htm The Briz M rocket class.
• http://www.spaceflightnow.com/proton/arabsat4a/ Details of the failed launch.
• http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2007/21feb07/mcnaught1.gif - An amazing "movie" as captured by Rob McNaught.

This piece of information from Space Weather

Jon P. Boers of the USAF Space Surveillance System confirms the ID and notes "later, on the other side of the world, our radar saw 500+ pieces in that orbit." Today the count is up to 1111 fragments. "[We're seeing] more fragments as the cloud expands,"
Copyright Space Weather.

Many thanks to Space Weather and Dr Tony Phillips for all the work in
tracking down the source of what we saw!

PICS..

The full image (no crops) can be seen in this gallery or directly from the links below.

• http://www.hillsrain.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-1034
• http://www.hillsrain.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-1035