It is raining space junk in Spain. Rocket fuel tanks, chunks of satellites or something else entirely. In just over one week, three mysterious objects have fallen from the sky onto the nation’s southeast, prompting bomb-disposal agents and experts in hazmat suits to rush to the sites as puzzled locals looked on.
First up a strange, black beehive-like ball was found in Mula, a town in the region of Murcia last week.
Then at the weekend, a similar-looking, smaller object was discovered in Calasparra, just 30km away in the same region.
“In the early morning of the day when the first object was found, witnesses said they saw between six and seven balls of fire falling from the sky,” Maria Jose Gomariz, spokeswoman for Calasparra town hall, said on Thursday.
“Maybe there were just two balls of fire and it looked like there were more ... or some may have fallen in areas where no one goes,” Gomariz said.
The discoveries sparked a stir, prompting special agents to rush to inspect the objects, but in both cases, police determined there was no radioactivity and no danger to human health.
The mysterious space junk was transported to the city of Cartagena, where there is a national vocational training center that specializes in chemistry.
“They could be auxiliary fuel tanks belonging to a rocket,” said a source at Murcia’s Guardia Civil, the police force that was called to the scene.
A third object was discovered on Tuesday in Elda in the neighboring region of Valencia, where a farmer found a long, metallic object in his field and called the police.
This time, special agents turned up, but after determining the item did not present any danger, they took it to the police station in nearby Alicante.
“It looks like a piece from an aerospace vehicle, but not a commercial plane,” a spokesman for Alicante police told reporters.
“It could be a piece of satellite or something similar,” he added.
According to NASA, more than 500,000 pieces of debris are orbiting Earth, and bits of space junk plummet to the ground every year.
“Houston, we have a problem,” quipped an editorial in Spain’s El Pais daily.
“Some measures may have been taken to tackle the problem, but we’re far from a solution,” the newspaper said.
“Not only is it expensive, but it’s also difficult to devise a garbage collection system to go sweep in space,” it added.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was