Here’s a tale ripped from the movies: A hollow ball drops from the sky over a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting NASA and the European Space Agency to investigate. The findings after almost two months of studying that mysterious orb: It’s made of a metal known to man
According to the AFP, that’s it. Well, that and the fact that “several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past 20 years, authorities found in an Internet search.”
What the story fails to mention: The orb is not exactly a mystery. Rather, it’s becoming all the more normal to have metal objects falling from space. Tech blog Gizmodo suggests its likely a metal-lined composite overwrapped pressure vessel — just one of the many objects floating in space.
In September, the National Research Council warned NASA that space debris has passed the “tipping point,” The Post’s Christian Torres wrote. “There are more than 22,000 such pieces in orbit. NASA estimates there could be hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of smaller, non-trackable pieces of debris also in space.” Here’s a depiction released by NASA of what the space around Earth may look like.