An unknown piece of space junk is zipping around Earth in an " erratic " and unusual celestial orbit . The target , known as A10bMLz , is being cite to as an “ empty applesauce bag object ” due to its resemblance to a plastic bag drifting about in the wind .
It was sighted by both the ATLAS sketch in Hawaii and the Zwicky Transient Facility on Palomar Mountain in California on January 25.Northolt Branch Observatories , a London - free-base observation tower , then spotted the physical object the next day around293,000kilometers ( 182,061 geographical mile ) above the Earth ’s surface . They say that standardized " empty trash grip object " have been keep before , but never at such a distance .
Rest assure , A10bMLz is not probable to be an actual trash bag , despite humans ’ predilection for dumping plastic trashin places it should n’t be . Nevertheless , the object is think to be a lightsome piece of human - made space junk , such as metallic foil spat out from a rocket launching .
“ At some point , it seemed as if it was go to bear on Earth in July 2019 , ” Daniel Bamberger from Northolt Branch Observatories secern IFLScience . “ But finally , it became clear that it was contrived , and that its arena was moderately quicksilver , and any endeavour to predict its succeeding path ( including potential impingement ) are bootless at this time . ”
“ The last time the object was seen was on the morning of January 27 by Peter Birtwhistle at Great Shefford Observatory , when it was about as far from Earth as the Moon , ” Bamberger go along . “ It was substantially fainter than foretell from the earliest reflexion . "
Earth is cluttered with well over 500,000 pieces of outer space debris , around20,000 of which are bigger than a baseball , that are currentlyorbiting the satellite at speeds of up to 28,100 kilometers ( 17,500 miles ) per 60 minutes , accord toNASA . Space agencies do a good job at tracking most of this orbital rubble , however , small pieces are often unacceptable to tail .
“ This is a small , very light physical object of the form I ’ve been bear on to as Empty Trash - Bag Objects , or ETBOs , ” Bill Gray wrote on theProject Pluto situation . “ Judging by its cleverness , this target might be a few meters across , in which case its mickle looks like under a kilogram . take down that those are very approximate values . "
Most distance junk is relatively harmless , but it can make some actual problem for satellites and other spacefaring vehicles . For example , in August 2016 , a small patch of debrispunctured a 40 - centimetre ( 15 - column inch ) holein the European Space Agency ’s Copernicus Sentinel-1A orbiter .
Thankfully , it looks unlikely that A10bMLz will cause any such bother .
