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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the Mr-Sri-Lanka-not-amused dept.

<tongue-in-cheek>A relatively large piece of space debris will fall back from its cislunar orbit around Earth in November. The date for the fireball happens to be Friday 13th, 06:20 UTC (12:20 local time), south of Sri Lanka. Famous Sri Lankan expat Arthur C. Clarke was not available for comment, having previously "left", but he would probably have enjoyed it.</tongue-in-cheek>

The debris is named WT1190F and everyone involved claims the pattern of WT----F in the name is a coincidence. It was first discovered February 18th 2013 and lost and reaquired several times but could have orbited Earth for many more years or decades before discovery. WT1190F is between one and two meters long and has a very low average density of 0.1 g/cm³. It is likely to be an empty fuel tank that won't reach the ground before having burnt up unless there are any denser parts like small rocket thrusters which might possibly survive.

It is easy to imagine that it might be a remnant from NASA's Apollo program and moon landings as some do but while plenty of astronomers will be using the return for scientific purposes there's little chance anyone will be able to prove whether indeed it is.

RT has a map showing the predicted area for any impact in their news report.


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  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @09:00PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday October 27 2015, @09:00PM (#255281)

    And into the ocean.

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh