CANADA: Human exploration of space has resulted in plenty of debris floating around up there, but most of it is nothing special. A piece of space junk called WT1190F is pretty unusual, though. This object is on an orbit that takes it far beyond the moon, but it’s on a collision course with Earth. There’s no need to panic — WT1190F is only 1-2 meters in diameter. However, no one really knows what it is.
WT1190F was first spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey, a University of Arizona program aimed at spotting asteroids and comets that pass close to Earth. The identification was made in early October, and scientists have since analyzed its trajectory and found that its density is very low. It may even be hollow. The upshot is that it’s not likely to be dangerous when it hits the atmosphere.
No one is sure where WT1190F came from or how it got on such a highly eccentric orbit, but we do know that it’s on course to impact the Pacific Ocean just south of Sri Lanka on November 13th. That is Friday the 13th, by the way… just saying. This object may be decades old — a relic of humanity’s early years in space. A piece of space debris spotted in 2002 was identified as a piece of an Apollo Saturn V rocket, so maybe WT1190F came from an Apollo mission as well. It might also be a piece of a more recent robotic mission to the moon. Eccentric, fast orbits like this (it completes an orbit every three weeks) are consistent with what we’ve observed with spent rocket motors, so that’s the most likely explanation for WT1190F.
Researchers are currently tracking only around 20 man made objects with distant orbits like that of WT1190F. This is the first one to end up on a trajectory that brings it back into Earth’s atmosphere. We might get a little more information about what this object is as it gets closer using spectral readings. WT1190F is expected to break up in the atmosphere before whatever is left hits the water. Sadly, that means there won’t be anything left to identify.
