Reports of a large bang, a flash in the sky and shaking ground have kicked off speculation of a meteorite strike in central Queensland.
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Police confirmed they'd received multiple reports from about 8.30pm near Gladstone, about 400 kilometres north of Brisbane.
There was no reported damage.
Private astronomer Owen Bennedick from Wappa Falls Observatory said he'd received reports from around a 100-kilometre radius, indicating "whatever it was, it was big".
He said reports indicated the space rock either hit earth or exploded in the sky above the planet, causing shockwaves.
He said the other possibility was that the space rock had exploded in the sky above the Earth in what's known as an air burst, sending shockwaves over a wide area.
"When a meteorite comes through the earth's atmosphere they get to eight or 10 thousand degrees," he said.
"And because they're cold on the inside and boiling hot on the outside, sometimes they have air pockets in them and it super heats them and then they explode.
"They can actually explode in mid air, partly through gas trapped in them or just the air pressure on them."
Relatively small, inactive rocky bodies orbiting the sun are called asteroids, with parts breaking off them called meteoroids. The light coming off these rocks as they enter the Earth's atmosphere is known as a meteor and they become meteorites when they hit the ground.
Mr Bennedick said he didn't believe the object was a comet, which are made of mostly ice, but it would be difficult to tell how large it actually was without finding evidence on the ground.
Geosciences Australia had no reports of an earthquake in the area at the time and Mr Bennedick said all planes were accounted for, leaving him and many others online to believe a piece of asteroid, known as a meteoroid, may have crashed to earth.
GA measurements of a 3.8 magnitude earthquake off Airlie Beach, in The Whitsundays, came about two hours later.
Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told the Gladstone Observer said it was likely to be a meteor.
"It's not a comet, or Queensland wouldn't exist anymore (and we'd have seen it coming for days)," he said.
"It is probably a large meteor - I'm guessing a rock about a metre across which would have been big enough perhaps to leave fragments (meteorites) on the ground."
Mr Bennedick said a woman from Cooroy, about 300 kilometres further south on the Sunshine Coast hinterland, reported seeing something in the sky about 2am.
The woman reported the light coming straight toward her, ruling out a satellite, which would have come into the atmosphere at a shallower angle, according to Mr Bennedick.
Weather watching group Higgins Storm Chasing received "hundreds" of reports between the whale watching hotspot of Hervey Bay and Yeppoon, north of Gladstone.
"It looks like a meteorite has impacted somewhere offshore from the general Gladstone area (based off the fact no damage reports have come through)," the group posted.
"A bright flash or light has been reported by hundreds of people, this light was seen as far South as Hervey Bay and as far North as Yeppoon with a tremor being felt upon impact over the general Gladstone area and Boyne Island."
