A tourist from Great Britain, Manon Clarke, found a titanium ball in the Bahamas with engraved inscriptions in Russian. Reported by The Independent.
According to the British woman, the ball was lying in the sand on one of the beaches of Harbor Island. From the text on it, you can find out that the object has a range of operating temperatures from minus 170 degrees Celsius to minus 196 degrees Celsius, its volume is 43 liters, and its weight is 41 kilograms. The ball was made in 2018.
Space experts, having studied the object, came to the conclusion that this is a high-pressure tank – part of the upper stage, a means of launching a spacecraft into orbit. How he ended up on the beach is unknown. According to astronaut Mark Morabito, he is 99 percent certain that the titanium ball is “the hydrazine reservoir of some kind of rocket” used to launch satellites.
Scientist Martin Archer (Martin Archer), in turn, recalled that most of the satellites or their components, which sooner or later must return to Earth, fall into the ocean. “Under controlled circumstances, operators typically seek to de-orbit and destroy them in a 'spaceship graveyard' in the uninhabited South Pacific, centered on Point Nemo, the farthest point from land on Earth. But, of course, not all satellites enter the atmosphere under such controlled conditions, ”he added.
Archer also admitted that the tank could be a spare part of a satellite that accidentally fell into the ocean.
