Finding Satellite Parts

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An Australian farmer was tending to his cattle when he came across a mysterious 'giant ball of twisted metal'.

Forget looking for arrowheads, the real excitement may be in finding satellite or spacecraft remains.

James Stirton believes the twisted metal ball is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites.

"I was riding out to check some cattle, and I came around the corner and there it was in a paddock," Stirton told Reuters on Friday.

"I know a lot about sheep and cattle but I don't know much about satellites. But I would say it is a fuel cell off some stage of a rocket."

He said the object was hollow, and covered in a carbon-fiber material. He has contacted some U.S.-based aerospace companies to try to find out what the object really is.

Stirton said "the object was smooth, with a carbon-fibre rope wrapped around it but it had been torn up on descent. I just wondered what it was so I went over and had a look at it and I figured it must have fallen from the sky because there's no tracks or traffic or anything out here."

Russian Boris Urmatov a shepherd feels less fortunate and is asking the Russian space agency Roskosmos agency for one million roubles in compensation for falling space debris nearly crushing his outhouse toilet. The debris was a three-metre chunk of metal.

The farmer said he heard something exploding late at night and in the morning in front of the shepherd hut he saw "this enormous metal casing, as smooth as an egg", which "nearly crushed the outhouse".

more at Gizmodo

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