Astronaut's Lost Toolbag Visible From Earth
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Remember that expensive bag of tools a spacewalking astronaut let go of last week? Now you can see it from Earth — if you've got a telescope.
Amateur astronomer Kevin Fetter caught video of the orbiting object from his Brockville, Ontario backyard Saturday, and posted it online for all to see.
"I don't have any [professional] background in astronomy," Fetter admitted to The Age of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. "Just one night I looked up at the night sky and got hooked on astronomy. It was many years later that I started satellite observing."
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Fetter used an orbital calculator on the astronomy Web site SpaceWeather.com to determine exactly when the lost bag, estimated to cost about $100,000 once the specialized tools are factored in, would be passing overhead.
"Depending on the size of the object and how much light its surface reflects will determine if I can see it, and get it on video," he told The Age.
Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper accidentally released the tether holding the bag to the International Space Station during the current space shuttle mission's first spacewalk on Nov. 18.
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It contained two grease guns that were specially fitted to lubricate joints on the space station's huge solar-panel arrays, both of which need to turn to face the sun in order for the orbiting habitat to attain full power.
"Oh, great," Stefanyshyn-Piper said as it drifted away into space.
Experts say the bag and its contents will eventually harmlessly burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, though it poses a risk to the space station and other orbiting satellites until then.
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• Click here to see the bag fly by overhead.
• Click here to see the bag drift away from the space station.
• Click here to read more on this from The Age of Melbourne.
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• Click here to find out when satellites may be passing over your back yard.