Mysterious night sky lights over Queensland identified as satellite flares by experts

Orbs of light streaking across the night sky below the planet Venus are fascinating Queensland sky watchers.

They appear about 8pm to the west, sparking online debate about their origin, with theories ranging from aliens to min min lights and defence testing.

Lisa Manteit has seen them from her house in Marian, west of Mackay. She thought they were drones until seeing other people across Australia post about them online.

"I see all these, what look like moving stars, but they sort of swirl around and go in circles and some of them have colour," she said.

"Everyone around here has started watching them every night."

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Graham Moyle and others in a Central Queensland astronomy group have sought to test those theories this month, finding evidence the lights may be caused by clusters of moving satellites.

"When you do see them, when you watch them, they do look sort of freaky," he said.

"Because they just appear out of nowhere and then they silently travel through near Venus and then disappear again.

"We went through everything and these are all satellite flares."

Science backed

Mr Moyle's theory has been backed by experts, including an unlikely partner in the form of an ex-NASA aerospace engineer.

Philip Giacalone, now retired, is based in California and has been working to verify the group's sightings using real-time orbital data.

He explained the "worldwide phenomena" occurred when satellites moved in line with the Sun below the horizon and did not necessarily need to align with Venus.

"Satellites [are] going overhead in low-Earth orbit, which is reflecting the sunlight off the bottom of the satellites," he said.

"Basically, like a mirror that's floating above the Earth."

Night sky simulator

Mr Giacalone has built a free program to track when flares are visible from any location in the world, as satellite launches increase sharply.

"They're increasing that rapidly, about 4,000 a year," he said.

"That's going to make this problem bigger and bigger, and people are going to be confused.

"I'm just trying to help to eliminate some of that confusion."

But some, including Ms Manteit, are not convinced.

She said she had seen movements of the lights that did not match the straight trajectory of a satellite.

"I really, really can't explain them," she said.

Satellites lift-off

University of Queensland astrophysicist Jonti Horner said the number of objects in space had tripled since 2020.

"We now have more than 16,000 active satellites orbiting Earth and more than 34,000 additional bits of dead satellite and other space junk that we're tracking orbiting the Earth," Professor Horner said.

About 10,000 of those satellites are Starlink, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sharing plans to put a million more into orbit.

Professor Horner said the equipment had obvious benefits, including better internet and accurate GPS, but more companies were looking to get products into space.

"It's all a little bit feral and unregulated at the minute," he said.

"The more of them we have up there, the brighter the sky will be, which will make it harder over the years to come to see the Milky Way, things like that."

The Australian Space Agency said in a statement it was placing "greater emphasis" on safe and sustainable use of space.

It said Australian civil space activities were regulated to include debris mitigation, and it was continuing to make reforms.