Space debris found more than 400 kilometers south of Sydney belongs to a spacecraft built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the Australian space agency said Thursday (local time). Bloomberg.
By our news editorsTechnical experts have visited the impact site in the Snowy Mountains, a rugged area in the state of New South Wales. They confirm that the pieces come from a SpaceX mission, the agency said Thursday.
A local medium shows an erect shard, wider and larger than an adult human, which ended up in an open mound. The debris belongs to a SpaceX Crew-1 Trunk that re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on July 9, said Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at Australia’s National University who visited the farm.
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US space officials reprimanded China last month after remnants of a massive Chinese rocket fell back to Earth over the Indian Ocean. Such debris carries “a significant risk of loss of life and property,” according to NASA.
The Australian space agency warned the public not to handle or pick up suspected space debris, advising them instead to contact SpaceX through its waste hotline. “The agency is committed to long-term sustainable space activities, including debris reduction,” the agency said.
Astrophysicist Tucker said on his YouTube channel that the parts are the largest collection of space debris found in Australia since 1979. SpaceX did not reply to an email asking if the company would clean up the pieces.
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