Posted on 10/19/2018 12:10:35 PM PDT by ETL
California residents were stunned to watch a fireball of space junk shoot across the sky and fall onto a nearby ranch last week. Videos of the bizarre sight quickly spread across social media — with many wondering what the debris was and where exactly it came from.
The owner of the ranch near Hanford spotted the big chunk of metal in his walnut orchard on Oct. 13 and alerted local authorities. ..."
After nearly a week of searching for clues, officials finally got an answer.
The Vandenberg Air Force Base told Kings County Sheriff's deputies the object was most likely a fuel tank that detached from a communications satellite owned by Iridium, a satellite communications company. The company confirmed to officials the object was, in fact, from one of their satellites that launched into space in the late 1990s and slowly re-entered Earth's atmosphere, the sheriff's office said in a statement to Fox News.
"The purpose of this particular tank was to store fuel used to change the orbit of the satellite in space," the Kings County Sheriff's Office said.
Iridium said the tank needs to be examined before they can officially confirm it belongs to the decades-old satellite.
“We need to see it. We may never be 100 percent certain," spokesman Jordan Hassin told the Fresno Bee, adding it has several satellites in low-Earth orbit.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
that is all....
Not quite.
ALL YOUR BASE BELONG ARE TO US.
Has your sister ever touched rocket fuel?
Or
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
Really bad interference with my transmission transcription. Sorry!!
I saw a bright green light streaking through the atmosphere last week on Saturday morning (Oct 13th noted in this story), around 5:30 AM MDT in Albuquerque. It was SSW in the morning sky. I wonder if what I saw was this thing.
Meth lab accident...............
So I guess the message is, there's more to come.
:o)
R2? is that you?
“Don’t touch it. Rocket fuel is nasty stuff.”
Would not re-entry heat sanitize the surfaces?
Clinton gave MIRV tech to China for this.
I dunno. Maybe these things don’t get as hot because they are kind of buoyant and float down. Or something.
Oh NO! All I have are GENERIC soap pads and half a daikon radish! What should I do?
Thanks. One more thing to be paranoid about. Space junk crashing through my roof in the middle of the night.
I don’t know.
Let me consult my Magic 8-Ball.
“You are screwed”
Sorry.
R2D2 ?
It's a weather balloon!
Right?
Correct. Hydrazine—specifically unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine—is a particularly nasty substance. Not only extremely toxic, but also extremely flammable. Many years ago, when a Southern Pacific train carrying hydrazine derailed in southern California, they literally had to cordon off almost a mile radius because of the fear the hydrazine might ignite in a spectacular fashion.
These tanks survive because they are internal to the satellite thus do not take the brunt of the reentry heat.
Even though they do burn through, as evidenced by the photo. there is still some residue remaining on the inner wall. Whether it is Hydrazine or Nitrogen Tetroxide it is very nasty stuff.
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