Curious story in AFP yesterday:
Full story here – Click the image above for a large view of the object.
Me thinks it is from either of these spacecraft:
The Vostok had a whole ring of spherical tanks, and maybe and old piece of space junk from one of the old service modules finally came home.
Only the main sphere is kept in re-entry, everything else is discarded.
Though given the trajectory when the service package is jettisoned, and because Vostok flight was in the early 1960’s, it seems doubtful such objects would remain in orbit, though possible if they “skipped” off the atmosphere after jettison.
Another candidate is the Soyuz, still in use today:
Under the shroud of the instrumentation support module there are a number of spherical tanks, as seen in this diagram:
Hi Anthony,
The tank is from a Salyut 7 – Kosmos 1686 spacecraft. It is made of titanium and was used to store helium.
See: http://www.bimsociety.org/gallery/Salyut%207%20-%20Kosmos%201686%20Helium%20Tank/dirindex.html
========================================================
Looks right:
Roy Spencer thinks it is a hydrazine tank:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/12/spaceballs/
Probably a standard interchangeable tank used on many spacecraft. Russians tend to reuse a lot of technology.
Not from the Salyut 7 (it re-entered in Feb. 1991). My guess would be part of the RCS from the Zenit 2nd stage from the Russian’s Phobos-Grunt mission.
Nah, It’s a baby Death Star.. Thank God we got to it before it ‘got all growd up’..
AGW would have been the least of our worries…..
Come to think of it, the Death Star gives the ultimate hockey stick temp profile for a planet, the ultimate Global Warmer….. Maybe Mr. Mann needs to go an investigate some samples of its’ rings.. There is a large enough sample source for him, one… I’m sure those statistics could bear him some fruit.
“metal alloy known to man”
Who writes like that? Just say what the alloy is. It sounds like the author is being intentionally obscure.
“You misread. 1.1 meters in circumference, not diameter.”
The picture caption said “A photo provided by the National Forensic Science Institute shows a giant metallic ball, 1.1 metre in diameter and weighing some 6 kilograms (13 pounds), that fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia.”
But I agree it seems more likely it’s 14″ in diameter- and seems strangely common for some reason. Helium is stored at high pressure- needing thick walls. That makes sense- it would hit the ground at a high velocity- slightly slower than a cannon ball.
If that things made out of almost pure titanium its worth its weight in gold… or titanium as its going for a alot per ounce nowadays.
Actually, it appears to be an American Orbiting Spy Ball. Namibia apparently shot it down using technology borrowed from Iran.
Barak Obama is very upset, and has asked that the Spy Ball be returned immediately. Upon getting a frosty “no” from Namibia, Obama changed his position to “pretty please give me my spy thingy back?”
Namibia responded with an encrypted message that has been submitted to the new supercomputer at NOAA for decrypting. An Obama spokesmonkey says the code appears very difficult to crack, but it shouldn’t be more than a few days to determing what “ROFLMAO” actually means.
GloBALL warming? If these are a result of AGW i think we might be in trouble…
My vote is:
a) right from FOIA him/herself. After that person must have balls of steel.
b) looks like it might come from a ball mill (used to grind ore) in a mineral processing plant.
If you cut it open and there’s a password inside then…not from a ball mill.
‘sprised nobody made mention of this yet; ‘the movie’:
“The Andromeda Strain”
Forget about what the damn thing is; I want to know how it got up and walked 18 metres from where it landed, until somebody finally caught up with it and arrested its escape !!
There’s a long history of ‘metal alloys known to man’ falling from the sky in Namibia –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Hoba_Meteorite_near_Grootfontein.jpg
rabbit says:
December 23, 2011 at 10:55 am
This is coming from early when this news came out a few days ago. Some journalist said that this ball could be the proof that UFOs existed.
It’s a ship bumper. Like what they use on boat at dock. Except this is used by alien spacecraft while at the space dock above or north pole.
…Or it’s just a fuel tank for a satellite that burned up on re-entry.
Well, I think Joe is right about it being used for hydrazine and not helium. I was wondering about the helium myself.
Niels
I don’t believe the explanation provided. Just another government coverup.
It is obvious to me this space relic is the remnants of the tank float from the toilet facilities on the crashed Roswell NM alien spacecraft. This answers the highly important question of why it crashed shortly after entering the earth’s atsmosphere. Averaged model runs utilizing the new NOAA-CRAY Gaea computer have robustly determined the heat of entry ignited the copious quantities of decomposing, methane producing alien scat. It also explains why hi-tech indoor toilet fixtures became universally available shortly after the crash. Of course, earthling fixtures are made of more readily available sustainable materials.
I am not at liberty to disclose additional details, except that the models provided no data on where the bidet ended up.
Clearly a carbon dioxide molecule that experienced over-forcing…
The carbon part was somehow over taxed and stressed,
causing it to swell into an unnatural size.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon-dioxide-3D-vdW.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Carbon-dioxide-3D-vdW.png
As CO2 levels increase, this kind of mutation falling from the sky will become a common event.
Soccer players from Alpha Centauri. And they’re angry!
Briff:”Oi! Phil!”
Philj: “Whadya want Briff me old spudgun?”
Briff: “Look, Manns got this *new* theory about these ere spaceballs in Namibia. Says he’s positive the models show a clear correlation to climate change. He reckons theres a hockey connection in there too”.
Philj: “Can we get it in AR5 dya think?”
Briff: “Darn right we can, even if it means redefining what the peer reviewed literature is”.
Philj: “Hey! Ive heard that somewhere before im sure, if only i could get my excel working!
Anyways,Thats so cool man! And if we offer up scary scenarios it should get some major coverage right?”.
Briff: “You better believe it kiddo and those research grants will just come a flooding in”.
Philj: “But what happens if those proper scientists start asking awkward questions about the brilliant climastrology we do here?”
Briff: ” Well, we’ll just decline, wont we?”.
PhilJ: “And hide too?”.
Briff: “Absolutely buddy, all in plain sight”.
pat says:
December 23, 2011 at 9:51 am
A number of these spheres have survived re-entry over the years. There is even a collection, Here is a listing:
http://reentrynews.aero.org/recovered.html
It’s peculiar that list doesn’t mention Challenger in 1986 or Columbia in 2003.
Nah. Us rich white guys causing havoc again,
Coincidentally I’m listening to Ella and Loiuis …
During the height of the cold war back in the early 60’s my teenaged dad found a similar titanium sphere in a farm field in Canterbury New Zealand. Was much officious self important behaviour from local authorities who were probably thrilled to feel vaguely relevant to the global conflict such as it was at the time. Was also Russian in Origin – and given very 50+ year old Soyuz design may even have been off the same model of rocket.
With all those micro craters it looks like a miniature moon.
Would have been neat if it had been from the vostok though, like a present day historical find. :p
It looks like a sleigh bell to me. Is Santa missing one?
Well, that will upset the Guardian. They were looking forward to aliens landing to punish us for global warming.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/18/aliens-destroy-humanity-protect-civilisations