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Space debris named ‘WTF’ is headed for earth

A one metre-wide piece of space debris is quickly heading towards our atmosphere.

The “space junk” is thought to be man made and possibly left behind from one of the Apollo missions.

Space junk has become an increasing problem as more and more missions discard debris which then threatens to re-enter the atmosphere.

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Named WT1190F, this object is scheduled to enter the earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean (just off the coast of Sri Lanka) on November 17 at a speed of 40,000 km/h, but don’t worry – it’s likely “WTF” will incinerate completely before it hits the ground.

And we certainly hope so, because if even a speck of the object were to collide with the earth, flying 32-times faster than the speed of light, you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end.

The experts don’t seem to be too worried about this happening, largely thanks to the size of the space junk.

“The object is quite small, at most a couple of metres in diameter, and a significant fraction if not all of it can be expected to completely burn up in the atmosphere,” Tim Flohrer told Phys.org.

Astronomers have been particularly interested in the object’s orbit, described as “eccentric” due to its oval shape and three-week duration.

It’s this unique orbit that suggested to researchers the piece of debris was not simply a small asteroid, but a manmade object.

Or as Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDoweel put it, “a lost piece of space history that’s come back to haunt us”.

Scientists will be studying the object’s movements in the coming month for a better understanding of manmade space junk.

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