A mysterious metallic object that crashed through the roof of a home in USA, earlier this year was not a meteorite, but probably a piece of space junk, scientists said Friday.
The silvery object was made of a stainless-steel alloy that does not occur in nature and is most likely “orbital debris” – part of a satellite or some other spacecraft, said Rutgers University geologist Jeremy Delaney.
“There’s huge amounts of material that have been left by various space programs of the world,” he said.
In January this year, NASA scientists, J C Liou and N L Johnson, reported in the journal Science that there was more than 9,000 pieces of space debris are orbiting the Earth.
They said then, that the hazard with such junk was expected to get worse and that there is no workable way to clean up the mess – some 5,500 tonnes – which includes pieces measuring 4 inches or more.
The crashing of the metallic object – now identified as space junk – into a residential building, sends a clear message to space agencies that the problem needs to be acted upon fast.
The object that crashed through the roof and dented the tile bathroom floor in the New Jersey home is slightly bigger than a golf ball and about as heavy as a can of soup.
Delaney had examined it, and initially pronounced it a meteorite based on its shape and density. So did other geologists and experts.
But in April, it was taken to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where a scanning electron microscope was used to establish its composition.
I was wrong,” Delaney said. “Sneaky little devil.”
