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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2011 15:09:30 GMT -6
An interesting story..apparently it's one of several that have dropped out of the blue and the composite is one known to us. A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency. The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik. For the rest of the article: news.yahoo.com/space-ball-drops-namibia-133326985.html
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Post by skywalker on Dec 22, 2011 19:22:39 GMT -6
When did this thing fall? I can't read the darned article because I am on a really crappy internet connection right now and nothing will show up. It wouldn't surprise me that there is all sorts of space junk falling all over the place since there is so much of it up there but I thought NASA and annaD and a bunch of other agencies with weird names were keeping track of it so that it wouldn't damage any of our satellites. Do they know this stuff is falling and just do not tell anybody because they think it will burn up before it hits the ground? Or do they just not care if people get squashed by it? Or is it maybe that they do not have a clue what's wizzing around up there and they are just as surprised by it as anybody.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2011 19:58:58 GMT -6
It was found in mid November Sky..here's the rest of the article
he said. With a diameter of 35 centimetres (14 inches), the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together". It was made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighed six kilogrammes (13 pounds), said Ludik. It was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 meters wide. Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past twenty years, authorities found in an Internet search. The sphere was discovered mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find. Police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka concluded the sphere did not pose any danger. "It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first," he said.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2011 21:36:04 GMT -6
"Vilho Hifindaka concluded the sphere did not pose any danger."
13 pounds? That's going to hurt if it hits me.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2011 22:58:21 GMT -6
Ive been looking around trying to figure out what it is. I looked at images of the Russian Sputnik satellite and although Sputnik is much bigger and heavier, it has some of the same features as far as shape and even the welding joints appear to be similar . Im thinking by appearance it may be Russian made (but not Sputnik of course). Im guessing it could be a tank of some type from a satellite which holds liquid nitrogen or helium for cooling possibly ? Ill keep searching. I wonder if Steve can identify this ?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2011 23:25:12 GMT -6
I looked up some of the features about Sputnik. Sputnik 1 was 23 inches in diameter, weighed 184 lbs., and used dry nitrogen for a cooling system.Its outer heat shield was somewhere between 1 - 2 mm thick and was made of aluminum - magnesium- titanium. Still searching.........
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Post by Steve on Dec 23, 2011 3:41:06 GMT -6
Sputnik 1 burned up on 4 January 1958. After 3 months in an elliptical orbit. Studies of the satellite by scientists all over the world taking advantage of the opportunity including the measurement of the Doppler effect of the radio signal from various radio tracking station. From this, and other satellites, scientists came up with GPS among other things. Lots of photos of fallen space junk exists on the Internet. The size and shape of the above object looks like one of the objects in the photo collection in the link below...that link thinks it is a propellant tank from an American Delta 2 rocket. gizmodo.com/5779619/oobject-space-junk-gallery/gallery/1
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Post by paulette on Dec 23, 2011 10:15:08 GMT -6
Ah...these things are BIG. I think it would be lights out for a lifeform directly underneath one. It doesn't look like anyone official comes and gathers them up and takes them away. Maybe if the farmer said it was a UFO...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2011 10:42:47 GMT -6
wow Thanks cliff and steve for looking! You guys are terrific for broadening my horizons! (My seventeen yr old son is spending Christmas Eve with me. Just him and I, while his sisters and grandparents go to our annual xmas eve party with extended family. He doesn't want to go to that, but I want to see him. So, he's agreed to go to a short church service with me, and then we'll hang out here. At his dad's he shares a PC with 4 other people, so I know what he'll be doing while we hang out . He'll be impressed about stuff like this. Him and I are a ton alike, so he will be also happy for me that I'm getting in touch with my "masculine side") .
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2011 12:48:41 GMT -6
Aww, that's wonderful JC!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2011 13:24:57 GMT -6
wow Thanks cliff and steve for looking! You guys are terrific for broadening my horizons! (My seventeen yr old son is spending Christmas Eve with me. Just him and I, while his sisters and grandparents go to our annual xmas eve party with extended family. He doesn't want to go to that, but I want to see him. So, he's agreed to go to a short church service with me, and then we'll hang out here. At his dad's he shares a PC with 4 other people, so I know what he'll be doing while we hang out . He'll be impressed about stuff like this. Him and I are a ton alike, so he will be also happy for me that I'm getting in touch with my "masculine side") . That is cool ! My interests in Astronomy ( at age 12) started with studying space exploration at about age 7 . I still remember seeing Apollo astronauts on the moon on our black and white t.v. at even a younger age(about 2) and remembering my dad tell me to make sure and watch close because it was very important and would be historical. Jc, you never know what interests like this may lead to in the near future for your son ! Astronaut ? ;D Im still thinking this is a Russian satellite/probe of some kind. I also read a report today from a representative at NASA (cant remember which website) that said it was most likely Russian, and could have been one of the Sputnik designs or Kosmos . I also read one which showed pictures of a helium tank that was nearly identical from a Russian probe , I should've took notes. If I find it again i'll try to load it to the forum . There's alot of speculation on the net right now as to what this might be, it's interesting whatever it is .
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Post by skywalker on Dec 23, 2011 19:13:03 GMT -6
A hole 3 meters wide is a pretty big hole so that thing must have been moving pretty fast when it hit the ground. i wonder why there isn't any carbon scoring or melting on it? At least I don't see any. I also wonder why they are only falling in the southern hemisphere?
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Post by Steve on Dec 23, 2011 19:51:15 GMT -6
My guess (and a big one) is the propellant tank was in a booster section of a large satellitte or discarded third stage of a rocket. The orbit decayed & it entered the atmosphere, the spherical tank protected inside from much of the exterior.
The outer parts of the object burned up and took much of the reentry heating, entering the denser atmosphere it slowed down due to the atmosphere to about 150 mph terminal speed - about the speed of a skydiver. In the lower denser atmosphere the object broke up tumbling & scattering debris including the spherical tank.
Structurally, a sphere is fairly strong, and though it is not solid it is light (hollow). It's large surface area is both uniform aerodynamically & large in relation to it's weight. There may even be some propellent left inside to keep it presurized like a balloon to cope with the impact. It seems to have come down fairly intact. Probably bounced a few times missing a camel or two....and rolled to a stop.... or something like that. ;D
Steve
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