Elon Musk has made news yet again. A piece of a SpaceX spacecraft recently crashed into a farm in New South Wales, Australia. It is thought to have come from a craft that was launched in 2020.
Not a UFO
Mick Miners is the owner of the farm that the spacecraft crashed into. Mick’s family says they heard a loud bang and sent Mick into the field to investigate. Mick thought that it was a tree from a distance, but he quickly realized that it was actually a piece of a craft.
Calling in Reinforcements
Mick called local authorities, who then reached out to Brad Tucker, who is a space expert at the Australian National University. He was able to identify the debris as a piece of SpaceX Crew-1. He explained how this phenomenon may have occurred on a radio show. “SpaceX has this capsule that takes humans into space, but there is a bottom part…so when the astronauts come back, they leave the bottom part in space before the capsule lands.”
Sharing His Find
Brad Tucker took to Twitter to share his find.
I just got back from Dalgety, NSW. I was busy confirming that parts of a @SpaceX Crew-1 Trunk capsule crashed into a few paddocks in rural NSW! More info to come:https://t.co/2VJzeYMhhn pic.twitter.com/sQsE4WAxRq
— Brad Tucker (@btucker22) July 29, 2022
The space junk shows clear signs of charring, which would happen during re-entry into the atmosphere. Tucker said that most debris usually re-enters the atmosphere and crashes into the ocean, but that some pieces can become derailed from their course. ‘It is very rare to see because they usually do not land on land but in the ocean. People often think they find small pieces of space junk, but they would burn up on re-entry, so it is more likely to be large pieces like this.”
Like Neighbor, Like Neighbor
A similar piece of space debris also landed on the neighboring farm belonging to Jock Wallace. Upon examination, it appears to be a piece from the same craft, and it also fell on the same day as the piece on Mick’s farm.
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This article was produced by C Nation and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Featured Image Credit: Jae C. Hong.
