Amazing that much survived re-entry.
Space junk (likely from ISS) impacts Florida house
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Haven't you seen Armageddon??????
I'd almost forgotten about that historical document. Those poor people.
here are the too possible outcomes,
A get a new crater (most likely)
B get converted into gravel and then kill us anyway. (It would not have spread enough to distribute the energy)
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Yes, the only solution to an extermination event is to send Bruce Willis into space, and if he bangs his head against the asteroid hard enough, it will disintegrate into tiny bits that will then burn up in the atmosphere.
But seriously, if and I mean if, we get enough advance warning, we have already seen that diverting the object is possible. Far enough away, a 1 degree difference in trajectory is more than enough to miss us entirely.
This one of a few good reasons to be thankful that space is so darn big…
Sooner Boomer
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It's not stainless, it's Inconel, an alloy of nickle and chromium (with a little iron). Melting point for most alloys is around 1300C (2500F). I'm surprised *more* chunks didn't make it to earth. Why were they using this particular material on a battery pallet support?
MClark
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Worked in aerospace.
With typical warning times for dark objects we always thought we would be dead before they decided doughnuts or bagels for kickoff meeting.
Diverting an object works on paper.
There is no hardware to make it happen.
Be like a dinosaur, just watch it burn in.
More probably did make it down to Earth, but didn't happen to crash through a guy's roof.
mjennings
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The new piece in the picture posted looks like a trunnion. If the pallet was launched by the shuttle that's what held the payload in place in the bay. Everything had 4 to 5 trunnions (2 starboard, 2 port, and 1 keel (smaller/flatter didn't always have a keel trunnion))
Maude
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Isn't that particular alloy used for making things such as turbine-blades?
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Pretty sure there are many different Inconels and, yes, one application is turbine blades.
Why would it necessarily be Inconel? The article quotes "The space agency said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. ". I would assume stainless steel if it is used only for disposal. Any other reason they would particularly use expensive Inconel?
Sooner Boomer
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https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/...ncounter-with-something-that-fell-from-space/
"On Monday, NASA confirmed the object's origin after retrieving it from Otero. The agency said in a statement that the object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, and is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter."
Thanks 
. I wonder why they wasted the money on the expensive alloy?
. I wonder why they wasted the money on the expensive alloy?
You never know when someone might try and attack you’re battery support with a welding torch!!Thanks
mjennings
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Strength (static and fatigue) and non reactive nature.Thanks
The earlier article mentioned it was on the disposal pallet, so both of those don't make sense. Unless the article was wrong and it went up with the batteries on ascent.
mjennings
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Everything got up there somehow and NASA doesn't send empty stuff up for giggles. It may not have been a payload bay trunnion dimensions quoted seem small for that, but likely something similar.
MClark
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Why do I have an image in my head of Minions in space suits laughing and throwing anvils off the ISS.
Maude
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Rubbish! NASA engineers had to realise that parts of the pallet made from inconel would survive reentry.
In this case NASA should definitely be footing the bill. I wonder if home insurance covers damage from falling space-junk?
Sooner or later someone is going to be hit by a piece of reentering space-junk and be killed or injured by it, If that 19 year old man had been hit by that chunk of incomes he could've been injured quite badly or even killed outright by it.
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Good job, mate! I completely heard the entire orchestra in my head! Sterling. Now, how to bring it up in casual conversation. Maybe karaoke?
WizardOfBoz
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So this appears to be a 2 inch chunk of inconel, which is an alloy used for high temperature applications. Such as rocket nozzles!
Inconel is extremely resistant to heat and corrosion. And this was a chunk with a prettyh substantial cross-section. So no wonder that it didn't burn up.
I think that you'd need more than a stick of dynamite to reduce this piece of metal's size. This part appears to be a trunnion (a pin on which a heavy piece pivots). It is substantial. I suspect that this was Inconel 718, with a very exact heat treatment. This makes it as strong or stronger as nearly any alloy steel. To pulverize this piece via explosives doesn't seem feasible. Better to exclude such high cross-section super allow pieces in the design.
WizardOfBoz
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Agree with that statement if you substitute "should have" for "had to". Because if they knew and rolled the dice ("yes, big chunks will survive and may hit someone, but its really expensive to load this on a shuttle and bring it down safely") this implies NASA has the same disease that Boeing appears to have. I suspect that they did not do an inventory to ensure that nothing "reentry survivable" was on the jettisoned pallet.
lr64
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Not sure people who fly rockets which occasionally fail and plunge to Earth at high velocities have a right to sneer. Ditto golf and baseball players, drivers, pilots of full scale and large model airplanes, etc.
WizardOfBoz
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There is some kind of weird mind warp in all of us in that we spend 100s or 1000s of dollars and hours, days, and weeks buying, designing, building, and painting small objects and then drive hours to a remote site so that we see these objects go very fast for about 4 seconds and watch them go high enough to be out of site, with a good chance of not seeing them ever again. Just sayin...
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lr64
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If you get to it three years ahead of time, while it's going 30,000 mph, changing its course by less than 1 second of arc ought to do the job. Looked at another way, changing the velocity something like 0.15 mph laterally ought to do it. That's good, since civilization-threatening objects are likely to be very heavy. Add something more, depending on the precision of your measurements, just to make sure you're not making the hit closer to dead-on instead of further.
I can just see, once we get a magic space drive, NASA going around and spray-painting all Earth-crossing objects flat white to make it easier for future civilizations to defend themselves, against the protests of comet watchers. How long does titanium dioxide stay white in interplanetary space? ;-)
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BTW, since I'm interested in rocket gliders, I could watch one for MUCH longer than 4 seconds. Only about a minute so far, though with binoculars it might have been much longer. This is also possible for rockets using oversized parachutes on days with big thermals.
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