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NASA To Investigate Mysterious 'Space Ball'
redletterdave writes "In mid-November, a hollow space ball fell from the sky and crashed into the earth in Namibia, the African nation situated above South Africa and west of Botswana and Zimbabwe. Authorities recovered the sphere in a grassy village north of Windhoek, the country's capital. The hollow ball, which appears to be made of 'two halves welded together,' has a rough surface, a 14-inch diameter and measures 43 inches around. The strange globe created a crater 13 inches deep and almost 12.5 feet wide, but was found almost 60 feet from the landing spot. Paul Ludik, the police forensics director investigating the case, says the dense ball weighs 13 pounds and is made of a 'metal alloy known to man.' NASA and the European Space Agency will both help investigate the strange occurrence."
SPACEBALLS?
The Great Space Ball Mystery Has Been Solved
"For anyone wondering what it actually is, it's likely a 39-litre hydrazine bladder tank (based on its apparent size; there are also much larger hydrazine tanks)," he wrote. "They're used on unmanned rockets for satellite launches, which would explain why they're falling down in such a specific geographic footprint."
Big mystery.... not.
Mythbusters were shooting in Africa?
Caution: Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Or any other pressurized fuel/oxygen tank http://www.bimsociety.org/gallery/Salyut%207%20-%20Kosmos%201686%20Helium%20Tank/dirindex.html
Nibbler has been worm-holed to our millennium!
I wonder, how fast would this space ball need to be going in order to dig all the way through Namibia and land in South Africa?
It's a COPV, see here or page 11 here. The wrapping has probably shielded it enough during the atmospheric re-entry and then ripped away, or it could be from lower altitude flight. In fact NASA and ESA have already studied this object, and most responsible news outlets have explained it along with the newsreport. The only real question is which mission or ship it is from, but unfortunately that might never be found out.
14-inch diameter and measures 43
Thanks for sharing numbers that almost defy pi.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Was it an African or European space ball?
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It's so obvious what this is, Wheatley fell down from space...
Considering the timing, it's obviously just a giant christmas ball which fell from a geostationary christmas tree put there by our future intergalactic cruisading space-christian overlords. It is almost 2012 afterall.
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Was a Dark Helmet found anywhere near the space ball?
don't polish it or it'll get ya.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Created in the LEGO experiment at CERN in Denmark, it traveled through the political hole neutrino tunnel dug by the Italian education minister. It popped out of the other end of the tunnel in Namibia an exclaimed, "I knew I should have taken that left turn at Los Alamos in Albuquerque!" Theoretical mathematically inclined experimentally minded Gedanken physicists quickly solved the observed event by slapping a few new dimensions that we can't observe onto the creaking load in Grandma 's basket of string theories model.
Schrödinger's cat may or may not have been involved, and law enforcement sources will only state that they are in the state of considering the wacky cat as a "feline of interest" at the moment, as observed from their event horizon.
Meanwhile, an enraged God crawled out of the sea at Tokyo and is smashing the paper skyscrapers in the city, whilst searching for His particle. It seems that He wants it back. Japanese defense forces are deploying ludicrously tiny plastic models with firecrackers attached to their canons, in an effort to force God to get His hairy ass out of their city.
A military spokesmen stated that they were trying to taunt God into making a mistake, but weren't sure yet what that mistake could be.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Mysterious Space Ball fell to earth in Namibia, presumably from outer space.
Authorities recovered the Mysterious Space Ball in a grassy village north of Windhoek, the country's capital.
Mysterious Space Ball, which appears to be made of 'two halves welded together,' has a rough surface, a 14-inch diameter and measures 43 inches around.
Mysterious Space Ball created a crater 13 inches deep and almost 12.5 feet wide, but was found almost 60 feet from the landing spot.
Mysterious Space Ball weighs 13 pounds and is made of a 'metal alloy known to man.'
NASA and the European Space Agency will both help investigate Mysterious Space Ball.
Do not taunt Mysterious Space Ball.
They launched that ball out of the wood cannon in the first season. He never found it.
Mel Brooks would be rollin' in his grave... if he was actually dead
It means that you probably have a teabagger up your ass right now, and there's nothing you can do about it, until the baby teabagger rips it's way out of your chest.
If I have said it once I have said it a million times, those damn alpha-centurion kids need to keep their damn glorpball off our lawn!
Monstar L
... it would end up in the pasta sauce, with tomato puree
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
"But NASA's got the spaciest balls of them all!"
NASA's just upset because they never get invited.
I came here wondering why there were no references to the falling spotlight in The Truman Show. The fact that every such reference has been removed tells me everything I need to know.
Oh, wait.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
We're screwed.
If he knows what alloy it is, and it's a familiar one, what alloy is it?
Its actually just sensationalism, as usual.
Look here at types and descriptions of reentered objects.
How many 'spheres' do you count?
Two halves welded together? Oh no, the Mighty V-GINY has landed!
Nice to know NASA will investigate. Since it is made of "an alloy known to man" they could at least tell us what the alloy is. I am sure they know exactly what it is and where it is from but that information will not be shared with the public either undoubtedly
Anyone want to guess what the fortune inside says?
I can't believe they let is crash into the earth! It's like you know your perspective's fucked so you just gotta let your hands work the controls as if you're straight.
You must be channeling Heinlein.
"Namibia, the African nation situated above South Africa "
I think you mean "to the north of South Africa." Otherwise, the real story here is how Namibia came to be floating over South Africa.
The question is: Which airline has a lousy enough maintenance record not to miss it?
Have gnu, will travel.
Its a fuel tank, made of paper thin titanium, usually over wrapped in Kevlar. It has an expanding metal diaphragm in the center that separates the fuel from the pressurizing gas. This design eliminates the need for a mechanical fuel pump, which would be another potential point of failure in space.
The real reason NASA is investigating is to determine what manner of space-time warpage the device uses to change the local value of pi.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Strike one. Groan.
Los Alamos in Albuquerque
Los Alamos is in Los Alamos (go figure, right?). Sandia National Lab is in Albuquerque (50 to 75mi south of Los Alamos, rough guess...)
... I would camouflage my ship to look like common space junk too.
As someone else pointed out, most of the re-entered objects that are reasonably intact are spherical tanks. They're one of the few components of a spacecraft that are very solidly built. Most are titanium, or titanium wrapped in Kevlar, so they can take re-entry temperatures. Spheres have good re-entry aerodynamics. Nose cones have been hemispherical since the late 1950, after it was discovered that pointy noses look cool but don't work well. (See the X-3 Stilleto, an unsuccessful jet plane from 1952. Looks it was designed by George Lucas.)
Does this mean that pi is slightly lower (43/14 ~ 3.07) in space?
Huh? I... I don't know that.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
and ask it where it came from.
"Reply hazy, try again "
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
It's a giant metal spore. Put it under the ground, water it, and let's see what grows.
Isn't hydrazine poisonous? Or am I thinking of the nitrogen tetroxide or nitric acid oxidizer it is used with in bi-propellant mode? Maybe not as dangerous as a plutonium RTG, but I thought that even the hydrazine fumes are a hazard from returning spacecraft (Apollo, Shuttle) that use this kind of rocket fuel.
1 2 3 4 5
Shouldn't that be 5 4 3 2 1?
Thanks for clearing that up. For a minute I wasn't sure what he was talking about.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/man-escapes-as-satellite-piece-crashes-through-roof-160651
A titanium ball of about five kg fell on to the roof of a house in Ordyn district.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
A military spokesmen stated that they were trying to taunt God into making a mistake, but weren't sure yet what that mistake could be
Basically, the Japanese defense forces where doing Aikido with God.
Nasa has hailed the discovery of an extraterrestrial bong as proof of drug use among visiting aliens.
I think it's a Pokéball...
" Whoa, slow down there maestro. There's a NEW Mexico? "
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Clearly, not a native (English) speaker. In American English, that should read, 'metal alloy *not* known to man'.
Of course, that leaves us all wondering if there are some women who know about it (or not, if the original is correct).
Max.
Space Egg!
I'm hoping NASA investigate how a 14 inch diameter has only a 43 inch circumference, those pesky aliens seem to be able to defy c=pi x d. There technology must be way ahead of us...
Spoutnik stay in space for 54 years so we can assume according to Einstein theory the Hubble satellite will fall back in 2044. ;-)
Must be Russian or Chinese.
Could be another Mythbusters cannon shot gone awry??
Anybody knows what the liability is when parts of somebody's rocket land on somebody's home and kill someone?
This thread has quite a few examples of rocket components falling on houses, so it seems the risk is actually pretty high.
Do government representatives come and indemnify the victims?
And then, what's going to happen for private launches?