Measures of one to two meters in length, is possibly hollow, and burn upon entering the Earth's atmosphere on 13 November. What have astronomers guessing is not the danger of this new piece of space junk, but they have no idea what it is.
As explained astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell Nature News might be a simple piece of a satellite, solar panels, or even a lost part of space history as a piece of the Apollo rocket.
Dubbed WT1190F, the fragment is one of the few who has a distant orbit that brings it to move beyond the moon. NASA has cataloged only 20 of these objects moving further away from the usual orbits of space debris.
On November 13, WT1190F will burn almost completely on entering the Earth's atmosphere. The remains that are not consumed will fall on the Indian Ocean somewhere south of Sri Lanka. The phenomenon is of no danger to any inhabited nucleus.
Astronomers will use the drop WT1190F not only to try to find out what
mission belongs, but to learn more about the physics of atmospheric
re-entry. In addition, the phenomenon will test a network of early warning of such objects being created.
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