SYDNEY — The sky lit up over Australia Thursday night as a strange fireball shot across the sky — and Twitter users were abuzz with theories until astronomers were able to give them the answer.

Worried sky-watchers in Victoria and New South Wales called into radio stations and took to social media around 10pm, saying they had seen "a massive shooting star" blazing across the sky.

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At first, concerned earthlings thought the bright spark might have been a plane on fire or a massive burning comet:

Arriving home from dinner to see a crazy fire ball in Melbourne's sky's...thought it was a plane going down at first. Any ideas? — The Young Mummy (@sophiejaneshaw) July 10, 2014

Still waiting to hear if that was the space station falling from the sky or just a massive #meteor over #melbourne. SCIENCE PLEASE. — Lauren Anderson (@SodaPopple) July 10, 2014

CFA emergency services spokesperson Andrea Brown told the Herald Sun: "We received numerous emergency calls from people concerned. People believed they had witnessed an aircraft crashing into the sea."

“It was really impressive,” John told radio station 3AW. “It had the flame and the intense burn. Just as it was falling away it broke up. I’d say it was a little asteroid or a comet.”

He was closer to the mark. Professor Brian Schmidt an astronomer at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University calmed down the Twitter crowd, predicting the fireball was simply a bit of space junk breaking up in the sky.

So our fireball may well have been a piece of space junk. Obj 40077 see http://t.co/cR5pL9ecR7 — Brian Schmidt (@cosmicpinot) July 10, 2014

The meteor was spotted in Melbourne, across Victoria, Sydney and parts of Tasmania.

#meteor this is what it looked like in #tas i used this pic from tas weather page pic.twitter.com/Wk3IGujL9H — tilly (@tillysparkles) July 10, 2014

So typical of that #meteor to go to Sydney & Melbourne, but snub #Adelaide. — Katharine Nicholson (@the_cheshirekat) July 10, 2014

Sydney Observatory finally dismissed our worst fears in a statementsaying a bright meteor passed across Australia at 9.42pm.

"Some of the reports indicated that the object was seen for ten seconds or more, which is exceptionally long for a meteor sighting," the Observatory said.

It confirmed the object was likely a piece of asteroid or space rock hitting the Earth's atmosphere.

Image: Sydney Observatory, Google

"It would have been 100 km or so high so that it could be seen for hundreds of kilometres. As it travelled along the intense heat of friction would have broken off bits of it and this was seen, especially from the Sydney region," the statement said.

"A very bright object passing through the atmosphere is called a bolide or a fireball. It is the same as a meteor, but brighter as it is a larger object."

That was a relief for Twitter users who thought they were seeing things:

So it was a #meteor. And there I was thinking I'd just had one too many. — Melissa Singer (@melsingerhack) July 10, 2014