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Slightly over a month ago at the end of November, the special attention of scientists and layman alike were drawn to the African country of Namibia. The Namibian government announced the detection of a small metallic spherical object which in fact had evidently fallen from space. While the object itself had actually fallen a few weeks before the announcement, the federal government refrained from making the story public until they could assess whether or not the mysterious ball was a hazard to national security. Having identified that the instrument was not a weapon or especially dangerous, the Namibian representatives called for NASAs aid in identifying it. The device was found by a local farmer, several days after he and a few other locals stated hearing several explosions. He discovered it some 60ft. away from a minor crater (about 12in. deep and around 13ft. in width)., about 480 miles from the Namibian capital, Windhoek. A picture was published of the foreign little device, and the details was swiftly acquired by the world’s largest news vendors. Message boards and chat rooms were packed with ‘industry professionals’ spouting space specifics and spreading opinions as speculation ran rampant on news internet websites and throughout the entire internet. Notions ran the gamut from the thoughtful to the ludicrous: was the item a weapon? Could it perhaps be a research instrument of some kind dropped coming from a weather balloon? Most exciting of all, was the ball earthly in origin, or did it suggest at existence beyond everything we fully understand? Most likely the simple truth is at once incredibly easier and more than somewhat mundane. Adrian Chen f Gawker has come up with the speculation that the subject is most likely a fuel tank for storing hydrazine: the fuel regularly used when firing unmanned rockets. While no official statement has been published about the exact nature of the object, a statement has been published to debunk the unrestrained speculation that this is the manifestation of some diminutive alien invasion. Police forensics director Paul Ludik claimed that even though the ball is constructed of an exceptionally ‘sophisticated material‘ it is still definitely man-made. The explosions that the folks heard were most likely the noise of the device hitting the sound barrier when it fell, or failing that the sound of the ball’s specific collision. The Chief of Police added that the ball doesn't present any danger. Describing why the Namibian authorities felt justified in waiting the revealing the story, police deputy inspector general Viho Hifiindaka said, “It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first.” He continued to suggest, while yet unidentified, was positively a metallic alloy that is ‘known to man’. The spheres composition is in fact reported to be identical to the compound used in the construction of most outer space vehicles, putting to rest any ideas that this ball might be evidence of alien life. While the distinct vehicle that released the device may never be acknowledged, it can be said without a doubt that this item is unquestionably man-made. This story came on the heels of a somewhat more pressing report by NASA concerning the loss of one of its satellites at the beginning of the year. The satellite broke up and broken up down to Earth in an area south of the equator.
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space, space exploration, astronomy, nambia, nasa,
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