Officials at the Australian Space Agency confirmed the debris found in the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales belongs to a craft built by Elon Musk’s firm.
Don Pollacco, a professor of astrophysics at the UK’s Warwick University, said that it was very rare for space debris to hit land. While objects fall from space to earth every day, the vast majority land in the oceans covering most of the planet, he said.
However, discoveries on land may become more common – especially as the number of rockets sent to space has hugely increased in recent years.
The Australian Space Agency (ASA) have confirmed that it is from Elon Musk’s SpaceX capsule.
Technical experts from the agency visited the location after being alerted by Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist from the Australian National University. Tucker first realised the timing and location of the debris falling coincided with a SpaceX craft’s re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at 7am on 9 July – 20 months after its launch in November 2020.
The scientist believes the debris came from the unpressurised trunk of the SpaceX capsule, which is dumped when returning to Earth. He called it the largest piece of space junk found in Australia since 1979.
Tucker also states that a third piece had been found farther west, near the town of Jindabyne.
