A car-sized object thought to be space junk

CANBERRA

Authorities were investigating on July 18 whether a cylindrical object about the size of a small car that washed up on a remote Australian beach is space junk from a foreign rocket.

Police had cordoned off the barnacle-encrusted object after it was discovered at Green Head about 250 kilometers north of the city of Perth late on July 16.

The Australian Space Agency said it was liaising with other space agencies to identify the object, which appears to be partly made of a woven material.

“The object could be from a foreign space launch vehicle and we are liaising with global counterparts who may be able to provide more information,” the agency tweeted.

European Space Agency engineer Andrea Boyd said her colleagues believed the item that washed up from the Indian Ocean fell from an Indian rocket while launching a satellite.

“We’re pretty sure, based on the shape and the size, it is an upper-stage engine from an Indian rocket that’s used for a lot of different missions,” she told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Whoever launched the object into space would be responsible for its disposal.

“There is a United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and they have an Outer Space Treaty that everyone has signed saying that whoever launches something into space is responsible for it right until the very end,” Boyd said.

Western Australia Police said in a statement on July 17 that a government chemical analysis had determined the object was safe and “there is no current risk to the community.”

Some early media reports suggested the find might be part of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 that vanished in the Indian Ocean in 2014 with the loss of 239 lives. But that theory was quickly discounted.