5 hours
image source, Getty Images
When Mick Miners, a farmer from New South Wales in southeastern Australia, first saw the large black object poking out of the ground on part of his land, he thought it was a dead tree.
But upon looking at it more closely and after verification by some experts, he found out that it was something that had fallen from space
The Australian Space Agency (ASA) later said it came from a SpaceX capsulethe firm of billionaire Elon Musk.
Specialists described the discovery as “rare” and “suthrilling”but said such events may become more common in the near future.
The object fell on July 9 in the region, but was not discovered by farmer Mick Miners until several weeks later.
Two other pieces were later found nearby, and the ASA asked anyone who found more objects to contact a SpaceX special debris hotline.
Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University, was called in to examine the farm object.
He is often called upon to conduct similar investigations, the vast majority of which results in pieces that are not space junk.
“It’s been super exciting to see all of this up close. I’ve never seen a piece of space debris fall like this“, he said in a video.
image source, Getty Images
Most of the space debris falls into the sea.
Don Pollacco, a professor of astrophysics at the UK’s Warwick University, agreed that it was very rare for space debris to make landfall.
He explained that while they fall from space to Earth every day, the vast majority impact the oceansas these cover most of the planet.
Also, the only recorded case of a person being hit was Lottie Williams, who was uninjured when a piece of space junk landed on her shoulder in Oklahoma, USA, in 1997.
Other incidents include damage to buildings in Côte d’Ivoire in 2020 by pieces of a Chinese rocket.
However, the findings on land may become more commonespecially as the number of rockets sent into space has increased tremendously in recent years.
image source, Archyde.com
Experts say launching rockets from private companies into orbit will generate more space debris.
The Sun is also moving into a more active cycle, Professor Pollacco added, creating a knock-on effect that causes more debris to fall to Earth.
Perhaps more worrying is a study from Canada’s University of British Columbia, published in July, which found there was a 10% chance that one or more people will die from space debris in the next decade.
But Professor Pollacco says that the possibility of a person being injured is still “almost zero”.
“I don’t think people should be scared. The chance of being hit by one of these objects is incredibly small,” he said.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC World. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss out on our best content.