Scrap space disintegrates in the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, perhaps it is Snoopy, the module of Apollo 10 – Free News

Washington (USA), November 14, 2015 astronomers -Many experts believe it may be just “ Snoopy “, the lunar module of the mission Apollo 10 game in 1969, the scrap space yesterday morning at 7:19 this morning, Italian time, disintegrated on impact with the Earth’s atmosphere to a hundred km south of Sri Lanka, in the Indian Ocean.

 

 

The object named by scientists WT1190F entered the atmosphere south of the Sri Lanka at 11:49, the time of greatest light day. The scrap from space appeared as a ball of fire that burned in the atmosphere and that is pulverized before touching down.

The experts on orbital debris have explained that most likely it was an object with a density of about 2 meters long. Some might, therefore, be treated exactly the lunar module of Apollo 10, Snoopy.

Scientists, says the INAF, the National Institute of Astrophysics, spotted the object, have concluded that, given the low density, it could not be an asteroid but of something man-made, such as the stage of a rocket, but did not understand what it was, the only thing certain was that it was space junk.

Other observers have suggested that it could be thrown away debris from a lunar mission, perhaps dating back to the era Apollo.

The clouds during the night hindered the observation of the fall of Snoopy on Earth, but a group of astronomers at NASA and ESA has captured spectacular images of the object from a plane that flew over the Indian Ocean at high altitude very close to the time of arrival of the scrap.

The International Astronomical Center (IAC) and the Space Agency of the UAE, have hosted a team of scientists to study the return of what was almost certainly a rocket of an earlier mission to the moon, Apollo 10 precisely, or latest Chinese mission, Chang’e 3.

Researchers INAF are almost certain that this is just one of the protagonists of the conquest of the moon, a piece called Snoopy, the lunar module of Apollo 10 launched in 1969 to test the landing maneuver, which had gone missing for too long now, once that had the batteries are flat and it sank into oblivion. The researchers can not rule out, however, that we can deal with a scrap of other lunar missions, such as Russian, Chinese or Indian.

“After having done his duty, as opposed to all the other lunar modules, Snoopy was not destroyed by controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and crash on the moon, but it was ‘fired’ into space by burning all the fuel on board, and placing it in a solar orbit “

explains the INAF.