Astronaut’s equipment bag that fell during a spacewalk seen from Earth – Kompas.com

KOMPAS.com – Earlier this month, on November 1 to be precise, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, accidentally dropped their equipment bag while doing a spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS).

Now the latest information says that the equipment bag is in orbit and can even be seen from Earth.

Also read: Astronaut Accidentally Drops Equipment Bag During Spacewalk

It is in Earth’s orbit

Quoting Science Alert, Friday (17/11/2023) the bag has even been given its own satellite catalog number and has also been recorded on video by star observers.

According to the EarthSky website, the equipment bag has the brightness of a magnitude 6 star. That is, it is not bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, but it can likely be observed through binoculars.

This visibility is caused by the bag being white and reflective.

If you want to try and find it, the best way is to find the ISS first.

The object was approximately five minutes ahead of the space station on November 11, a time that will continue to increase as time goes by.

While reporting on Live Science, Harvard Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astronomer Jonathan McDowell revealed that the bag circles the Earth in an orbit of approximately 415 by 416 kilometers.

Fortunately, the bag is not potentially dangerous to the ISS and its crew.

Over the next few months, the bag of tools is expected to spiral closer to Earth before finally disintegrating in the atmosphere.

Also read: What Happens to Astronauts Without Spacesuits?

Not the first time

This isn’t even the first tool bag to reach orbit.

In 2008, when NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper attempted to repair equipment jammed in the ISS’s solar panels, she lost her grip on her equipment bag. The bag also ended up circling our planet.

It’s also not the strangest object orbiting Earth. The title of strangest object may fall on the spatula belonging to the late NASA astronaut, Piers Sellers.

He lost it while using it for heat shield repairs during the Discovery STS-121 space shuttle flight in 2006.

This may be a good anecdote, but there is also something serious: the amount of space junk orbiting our planet is now in the millions.

By September 2023, the European Space Agency estimates there will be 35,290 defunct objects in Earth orbit. Space debris with a total object mass of 11,000 tons has the potential to cause danger.

Also read: Why Are There More Male Astronauts Than Female?

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