Wt1190f

[Bill Phil]

Okay, so how would *you* measure the mass remotely? Remember, mass doesn't affect the orbit.

Mass does affect the orbit, but only to the tiniest margin.

We could use average density combined with a known volume. If only we knew it...

[cantab]

If the light curve indicated it was tumbling, would that allow an estimate of the moment of inertia and thus the mass?

[sgt_flyer]

Well, with it's orbital parameters, i think they can estimate how much earth's exosphere drag affect the object's orbit (between two objects of the same size, the less dense would be slowed down more due to drag)

Other possibility, how much the moon's gravity is able to influence the orbit.

[lajoswinkler]

A few years back my science teacher was a meteorologist (as in, studied weather, atmosphere interactions etc) and told me to never trust weather forecasts more than 3-5 days in advance. I don't know how much progress we've done in a couple of years, but I think that checking how the weather's going to be like on November 13 some 20 days earlier is a bit too much.

No such progress, because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere. We only got better at getting more accurate predictions in means of spatial resolution.

Three days, that's it. Anything over that, don't even bother.

[LordFerret]

I'm sitting here laughing because ya'll are beating me on the head about this. I didn't find the object. I didn't speculate anything about the object. All I did was report on the news and commentary given. If you have questions about it, you can do what I did - search the web and look for the sources. Have a nice day.

Again; Anybody living in southern India or in Sri Lanka, if you do get a chance to see it - it would be cool if you could get some pictures or video.

[VirtualCLD]

It's been a couple of weeks, but I thought to bring this back to the front page since this should be re-entering in ~3 days. According to Wikipedia, a team of researchers from "International Astronomical Center (IAC) and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency will utilize a Gulfstream 450 jet to study the re-entry from above the clouds and haze." A news article "The mysterious man-made object, which experts believe is the remnants of one of the Apollo missions, will hurtle into the Indian Ocean about 65km off the southern tip of Sri Lanka at 6.15am local time." I'm not sure I believe that article, but maybe we'll have a greater degree of confidence later on.

[RainDreamer]

Can we like, have a close look at it before it go to re entry? if it is ~3 days away it should be close enough, shouldn't it?

[VirtualCLD]

Can we like, have a close look at it before it go to re entry? if it is ~3 days away it should be close enough, shouldn't it?

It can depend on what "angle" (orbital plane and phase) it is approaching from. If the sun is behind it, then we might not be able to image it very well (if at all).

[Frida Space]

According to INAF, it has an orange color, which would mean it could be Snoopy, Apollo 10's lunar module.

http://www.media.inaf.it/2015/11/11/torna-a-casa-snoopy/

[sgt_flyer]

Yup, snoopy's a possibility, as they remotely fired it's engines after they jetissoned the lunar ascent module before the CSM got back to earth.

The engine firing sent snoopy into an heliocentric orbit - we might have catched up to it

Current weather forecast for colombo in sri lanka.http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/sri-lanka/colombo/hourly

Seems the emirates sponsored airborne observation.

http://www.astronomycenter.net/events/2015/11/03/wt1190f?l=en

Though, if there's thunderclouds in the area, they'll have some problems getting to a good spot. (Thunderclouds go way higher than plane's service ceiling)

Edited November 12, 2015 by sgt_flyer

[lajoswinkler]

When is the reentry?

Oh, tomorrow. Never mind.

Edited November 12, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Kryten]

Based on further observations showing even smaller size than earlier thought and a stable light-curve (so roughly spherical, without flat panels to cause flashes), this is probably a small solid stage. Likeliest candidates (according to Jonathan McDowell) are the KM-V1 stage from Japan's Nozomi Mars probe and the Star-37FM from Lunar Prospector.

[problemecium]

This thread has hereby been resurrected in light of the object actually hitting Earth this morning, right on time and where predicted. Yay for modern astronomical science!

http://main.slooh.com/event/...-space-junk-crash-landing-on-friday-the-13th/

[Halo_003]

This thread has hereby been resurrected in light of the object actually hitting Earth this morning, right on time and where predicted. Yay for modern astronomical science!

http://main.slooh.com/event/...-space-junk-crash-landing-on-friday-the-13th/

Broken link, here's a working one: http://main.slooh.com/event/...-space-junk-crash-landing-on-friday-the-13th/

Edit: I lied it changed mine too.

[Geschosskopf]

A link that works:

http://www.space.com/31112-falling-space-junk-wt1190f-webcast.html

And another:

http://impact.seti.org/

Edited November 13, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Hcube]

Was anyone able to identify it ?

[Kryten]

Was anyone able to identify it ?

Narrowed to a couple of the most likely targets, which I've already given in this thread; any objects of that type older than those (both from 1998) would be expected to have been perturbed into solar orbits.