NASA
said that a piece of space trash the size of a refrigerator
plunged into Earth's atmosphere late Sunday to break up over
the southern Pacific Ocean, more than a year after an
astronaut tossed it off the international space station.
RIGHT: The unneeded tank leaves the station
after being tossed out of orbit by Astronaut Clayton
Anderson, on July 23, 2007
Space station program manager Mike Suffredini
reported that the orbital trash, a
1,400-pound tank that held toxic ammonia coolant,
reentered the Earths atmosphere and fell out of orbit as it flew above the ocean
just south of Tasmania.
"What debris may have been
still together after re-entry, it fell into the ocean
between Australia and New Zealand," Suffredini said. "I know a lot of folks were wondering what
the end result of that was."
The tank had
served as a spare reservoir of ammonia coolant for the space
station in case of leaks since 2001, but was no longer
required after astronauts activated the outpost's main
cooling system in early 2007. Because the tank was so old,
engineers were worried that its structural integrity
wouldn't hold during a return to Earth aboard a NASA
shuttle.
Instead they asked Anderson to toss it
during a spacewalk dedicated to discarding old equipment. He
also jettisoned a 212-pound (96-kilogram) video camera
stand. That item burned up in Earth's atmosphere earlier
this year.
Original Article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27479972/
