Blink And You’ll Miss It: The Surprising Everyday Object Set To Fly Over The UK On Tuesday

A toolkit will fly above the UK on Tuesday night, after it was drifted into the ether during a mission last week.

Nasa astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Harra were fixing a solar panel on the International Space Station (ISS) when their tool bag just… slipped into space.

And because it was seen as low risk, the astronauts just left it behind.

Now, the bright, white bag is travelling 250 miles above Earth, around five minutes ahead of the ISS.

It’s surprisingly visible to people on the ground too, meaning you don’t have to be a NASA astronaut to see it – you just need binoculars or a telescope, and a spot of good weather.

Anyone in the south of the UK should be able to spot it between 6.24pm and 6.34pm on Tuesday evening, and it’s expected to return on November 24 between 5.30pm and 5.41pm.

It was first spotted by the Virtual Telescope Project last week, and it’s now being tracked by the US Space Force to make sure it doesn’t threaten the ISS or satellites.

Some estimates reported last week in the Smithsonian Magazine suspect it will re-enter the atmosphere between March and July 2024.

This is not the first time astronauts have lost something into space, though.

Nasa astronaut Ed White lost a spare glove in 1965 during a spacewalk, and in 2006, fellow Nasa astronaut Piers Seller lost a spatula as he repaired a heat shield.

And Nasa’s Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper also lost her toolbag when attempting to repair parts of the ISS back in November 2008, as she became the first woman to lead a space walk, ever, at the time.

Worries about space debris are growing.

More than 170 million pieces have been dropped into the universe since that first glove was dropped back by White almost 60 years ago.

Share Button

‘A Bear On Mars?’ NASA Spots Trippy Phenomenon On Planet’s Surface

Scientists looking at the surface of Mars have spotted what looks like a bear staring back at them.

A camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took a photo of the formation on December 12. It was shared Wednesday by the University of Arizona, which operates the camera.

A hill with a V-shaped collapse structure forms the bear’s nose and a circular fracture pattern creates the head, the university’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory explained in the blog for its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

“The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?” it said.

This is due to a tendency for the human brain to try and see recognisable shapes in objects or data that are otherwise not familiar to us, known as pareidolia.

Share Button