WTF: Mysterious Space Junk Will Fall to Earth Next Month

Mysterious debris, believed to be several meters in diameter, is set to light up the sky as it falls back to Earth in a few weeks.

Scientists have pinpointed a spot in the Indian Ocean, 60 miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, as the splashdown site.

Some have speculated the object is a rocket body, but really, no one knows what it is.

Watching its trajectory over the next couple of weeks until the point it falls back to Earth will allow scientists to better study how debris behaves when it re-enters the atmosphere while also letting them test “readiness for any possible future events involving an asteroid, since the components of this scenario, from discovery to impact, are all very similar,” the bulletin said.

And now for the punchline:

The object — officially named WT1190F — is expected to enter Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 13, at 2:20 a.m. ET, at which point much of it will likely burn up, according to a bulletin from the European Space Agency’s Near Earth Object Coordination Center.

Mysterious space junk, and they called it WTF…

<Snicker>