Unidentified Space Junk Labelled ‘WTF’ Is About To Crash Into Earth

A piece of space junk that has been given the apt name of ‘WTF’ is heading straight for Earth - and will crash into us in less than a month. No one seems to know exactly what the flying object actually is - hence the name - but they are in no doubt we are in its path. All anyone is sure off is that it is about two metres wide and could be hollow inside - meaning it might be man-made. But how would a man-made object be hurtling in space and on a collision course with the planet where it originated? Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell explained: “[It could be] a lost piece of space history that’s come back to haunt us.” Nature News suggested that it could be a piece of rocket from a recent space mission - possibly even from Saturn V (above), the first rocket to launch astronauts to the moon. Whatever WT1190F is, we can at least hold off on any panic that it might do some serious damage to life on Earth. If it doesn’t burn up when entering the planet’s atmosphere, it is on course to land in the Indian Ocean, just off the coast of Sri Lanka, on November 13. However, astronomy software developer Bill Gray added: “I would not necessarily want to be going fishing directly underneath it.” Don’t worry, we have no intention of doing that.
uk.news.yahoo.com...

I thought it would be interesting to hear peoples speculation on what it could be?
Or if someone might be able to find out some more information.

I was under the impression we tracked our space junk if it was above a certain size?

originally posted by: joho99
I was under the impression we tracked our space junk if it was above a certain size?

We do now but if that's from a Saturn rocket we might not have been tracking space junk back then...I'm not sure exactly when we started tracking space junk.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: joho99
I was under the impression we tracked our space junk if it was above a certain size?

We do now but if that's from a Saturn rocket we might not have been tracking space junk back then...I'm not sure exactly when we started tracking space junk.

It's goin to take a lot of trackin.


orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov...

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Apparently we have been cataloguing it since 1961, so i should imagine we have put names and locations to anything that is catalogued.

A History of Garbage in Space

A previously posted thread on this topic exists.

Please add to the ongoing discussion here.

Thread closed