Don't Worry, It's Just Raining Space Junk

SPRINGFIELD - Orvil Mitchell holds the curved hunk of dark metal up for inspection. It's about the size of his hand, and heavy.

Mitchell found the 2 1/2 -pound chunk last month. He believes that it dropped from the sky, slamming through the top of an old camper next to his house. He can only guess where it came from.

john

www.registerguard.com...

I don't think that came from space if it at any time was lit up like a roman candle, it would be black or really discoloured from the heat and the edges would be rounded. It may have been a burst gas or water pipe that was above ground and that chunk may have just had a long/high arc.

Umm...there's no gravity in space. Launches are made and sattelites are sent away from the Earth so they wont get sucked in by the gravity. So the peice only could come off from a pice of metal in space. Maybe from a sattelite, or something else, and if sattelites, are place away from the Earth's gravitaional pull the pieces would be at the same place as the sattelites were, and wont get sucked in. So it probably came from a plane.

Wrong, wrong and wrong again. There is absolutely gravity in space, however objects in orbit travel so fast there is no realitive drop towards to the center. Sattelites in low earth orbits regularly re-enter due to the repeated small tug of the very upper atmosphere. Other things such as 3rd body effects, particle clouds, etc. could also push a sattelie (or piece of one) close enough to the atmosphere to re-enter.

And most metals used in space are resistant to heat and oxidation, so even after being heated during re-entry they won't neccisarly be a chunk of charcoal...

There is no metal that is resistant to heats over 2000 deg C, there will be discolouration at least. The chunk he's holding has rust on it, so it has oxidized and it has a blackish coating like steel water piping.

you would think that if this thing come rocketing in from space there wouldnt be much of a Camper left?????

I think they wouldn't use much steel in satellites... it's weight which costs when you send things up.