28.05.2024

A groundskeeper at a luxury campsite in the US state of North Carolina recently stumbled upon a massive piece of space junk that has left everyone scratching their heads. Justin Clontz, the discoverer of the mysterious object was left "shocked" when he encountered the dense, metallic object which was charred due to the atmospheric re-entry.

According to The New York Post, the debris measures a 3 feet wide, nearly 4 feet tall, and is about an inch thick. Clontz reportedly told media outlet WLOS that the surrounding area where it fell showed no signs of damage despite its obvious fiery descent.

"It's once in a lifetime, you know, it doesn't happen every day. We don't know what it is. We just know that it's not from up here," Clontz told a local TV station.

He said that since the object was too heavy, Clontz and his co-worker tied a rope to the object and dragged it out using a lawn mower.

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Meanwhile, speculations are being made that the object belongs to a SpaceX capsule.

In a post on X, Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks space objects said, "This definitely looks consistent with being a bit of the Crew-7 Dragon's trunk which reentered on a path right over this location on Tuesday (May 21).

Prior to Crew-7, which launched on August 26, 2023, the debris from Axiom Space's Ax-3 mission trunk and the Crew-1 trunk crashed in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and Australia, respectively. This, McDowell says, "makes it clear that the materials from the trunk regularly survive reentry in large chunks."

Quelle: Mashable India