This is the best summary I could come up with:

There were multiple reports from Victoria and Tasmania of a bright light streaking across the sky leaving a trail of what appeared to be flames.

"The flashes of light seen across Melbourne skies overnight were likely the remnants of a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket re-entering the Earth's atmosphere," the agency said in a statement.

The space agency said Russian authorities gave notice of the launch and the remnants of the rocket were planned to re-enter the atmosphere into the ocean off the south-east coast of Tasmania.

Astronomer Alan Duffy from Swinburne University said the colours produced as the object streaked across the sky suggested it was man-made material.

"So, pieces were coming off this object and in turn they were burning so what this means is that what we are seeing up there is something very large, it's travelling very fast," Professor Duffy told ABC Radio Melbourne.

Earlier this month, the Australian Joint Rescue Coordination Centre put out a navigation message for possible space debris between Antarctica and Tasmania from 11pm last night.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!