Astronomy experts say an unusual hovering white light that shone in the western sky last night and was seen across more than 1,100 kilometres from Yallingup to Carnarvon, was likely fuel from a space rocket launch.
There were dozens of reports of the light on social media pages and people described seeing a pencil-shaped structure shining a bright light hover in the air for a few minutes, before disappearing into a cloud which then dissipated into the atmosphere.
Matt Woods from the Perth Observatory says there were several rocket launches yesterday including a solar observatory launched by the Chinese.
'What you guys got to see, lucky do-ers, is basically the second or third stage of a rocket," he said.
"We think it could either be a Chinese long-march rocket that launched its solar observatory CHASE or a Soyuz rocket that launched yesterday as well with 36 satellites from the OneWeb internet constellation, so it's a rival to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite.
The Chinese H-alpha Solar Explorer (CHASE) launch was China's 37th orbital launch of the year. It lifted off from Taiyuan, in north-eastern China, carrying 10 satellites for various uses including meteorology and maritime navigation.
OneWeb, a British company, launched its Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia.
Mr Woods said sights such as this would become more common.
"We've actually seen a few of these over the last couple of years and we should probably start seeing these more regularly, especially with the Chinese being so active now with launching rockets," he said.
Mr Woods said those who witnessed it were essentially seeing liquid fuel expelled from the rocket as it entered orbit.
"You've basically got hydrogen and oxygen being fired out and it's like a mass big fuel dump, especially at the end," he said.
