JAKARTA – In addition to tracking the International Space Station, stargazers can now follow gear bags.
That’s right, the astronaut equipment bag is now orbiting Earth after drifting while NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara were carrying out maintenance on the ISS during a spacewalk on November 1, 2023.
According to NASA’s official blog, the bag – which contained equipment not needed to complete maintenance – was spotted by flight controllers using an external station camera while it was hovering.
Meganne Christian shared footage of the bag floating on X (formerly known as Twitter), revealing that the bag was last seen by JAXA Astronaut Satoshi Furukawa “while hovering over Mount Fuji.”
He also quipped, “The `Orbital Police` can confirm that the missing EVA equipment is being tracked.”
Now the bag orbits the Earth about a minute faster than the ISS, according to author Dave Dickinson, who wrote The Backyard Astronomer’s Field Guide: How to Find the Best Objects the Night Sky has to Offer.
As a result, it enters the list of artificial stars that can be seen with binoculars or a telescope.
“A tool bag went missing during last week’s EVA to replace the trundle bearing on the solar alpha array port,” Dickinson wrote in X.
“The object is now listed in the catalog as ID 1998-067WC/58229. The equipment case as a +6 magnitude `star` is currently about a minute ahead of the ISS.”
According to NASA, the risk of the tool bag connecting with the station “is low and the crew on board and the space station are safe and no action is required.”
This means that for now, the pocket will continue to orbit Earth and will likely remain visible for at least several months before burning up in the atmosphere.
According to NBC News, skywatchers who want to find the errant equipment bag must first find the location of the space station using a NASA app.
On a clear night, observers using binoculars or a telescope may be able to see the bag moving slightly in front of the space station.
The object will appear as a faint light moving across the sky directly in front of the fast-moving and much brighter space station.
2023-11-25 19:01:00
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