Shortly after 7am on a Saturday morning, July 9, people across the region - from Wagga to the South Coast heard loud bangs. A few even spotted a show in the skies, which looked like meteors.
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At the time, what most did not know, was that it was space junk that belonged to SpaceX. This was the SpaceX Crew-1 Trunk, the unpressurised bit attached to the capsule which carries astronauts to and from space.
Now, bits of this trunk, the bits people saw and heard on July 9, have been found in sheep paddocks outside Dalgety, NSW. And not small bits.
One piece, on Mick Miner's paddock, was about three metres long, about 30kg, and wedged into the ground like an arrow from space. Another smaller piece, still about an 80cm square weighing 10-15kg, was found by his neighbour, Jock Wallace.
These two bits are some of the largest pieces of space junk to ever be found in Australia.
More reports have come in from Jindabyne of people also finding large pieces. There is likely to be a lot more. As we speak, the Australian Space Agency is down in the area making sure it is all safe, and starting a lengthy legal process. They are working with their counterparts in the US - the FAA - to sort out a lot of important legal aspects, government by treaties.
The original intention was as the SpaceX Crew-1 Trunk hit the atmosphere, it would hit the atmosphere in such a way that it broke apart. It definitely did that, but the plan was for the bits to land off the coast in Australia in the Tasman Sea. While most of the bits likely did land in the ocean, clearly not all of it did.
Jock found his piece on Thursday, July 21. After trying to figure out what it was, he eventually chatted to his neighbour Mick, who found his piece the following Monday. After trying to figure out what is was, and contacting multiple groups, eventually they contacted their local ABC station and myself.
We went down to see and confirm that it was indeed space junk. As they say, seeing is believing and this is such a rare event, I had to see it with my own eyes.
The first time something like this happened in the world, and definitely the first time in Australia, was when the US space station SkyLab crashed in Esperance, WA, in 1979. That was uncontrolled - meaning it was just falling back to Earth and could land anywhere and at anytime.
However, the Crew-1 Trunk was controlled - meaning it was purposely angled into the Earth's atmosphere using on-board thrusters with the intention of having any surviving bits land in the ocean.
This is where most space debris ends - in the ocean. In fact, a popular place is Point Nemo, the place on Earth furthest way from any land. It already serves as a spacecraft graveyard with lots of other space objects, such as the Russian Mir space station.
It was the SkyLab incident that made countries have a plan of how to bring the debris back down. However, it doesn't always go to plan. In the 1980s, a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite crashed in Canada, creating millions of dollars of clean-up and a bit of an international incident.
A rocket booster a few years ago is believed to have crashed in West Africa, and last year, bits of the second stage of a SpaceX rocket crashed in the US state of Washington.
It doesn't happen that often. But it is happening more and more. As soon as Sunday.
At the time of writing, a Chinese Long March 5B was hurtling towards Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry. It is much bigger than the SpaceX Trunk - measuring about 23 tonnes and 52 metres long. It was estimated to crash on Sunday morning. We can rule out where it won't crash, but not where it will. There are large chunks of Australia it can crash in.
If a Chinese rocket crashing to Earth sounds familiar - well it is. It happened last May when just two hours before crashing, it passed right over Canberra. It eventually crashed off the north-west coast of the Maldives.
The rocket coming down Sunday took up the second part of China's new Tiangong Space Station. Last year, the same model rocket took up the first part. When it happened last year, the community warned this would happen again and implored China to find a better design to have it at least controlled coming down. This has yet to happen.
And it will happen again - China is set to launch the third maid module later this year - on another Long March 5B.
Mick and Jock had quite the surprise finding bits of junk in their paddocks. But as we launch more things into space, it is likely to happen again.
Only it may not be in a paddock or the ocean - it may be in an inhabited area - a growing worry in the space community.
- Brad Tucker is an astrophysicist and cosmologist at Mount Stromlo Observatory, and the National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU.
