Featured Image Credit: Facebook/Queensland Fire Department
Experts have speculated that the origin of six mysterious metallic orbs found on a secluded beach in Australia could be in space, yet instead of being the ominous sign of an impending alien invasion, it's far more likely that they were shed from a recently launched rocket or spacecraft.
It's easy to point towards aliens when dealing with the unexplained, and that's exactly what's happened with similar ominous orbs found in other parts of the world, yet an explanation behind the six that recently dropped down onto a beach remains up in the air for the time being.
As reported by Futurism, local police did initially deal with the threat as if it were hazardous, warning the public to stay away in a bid to mitigate risk before eventually confirming that the orbs themselves were 'safe'.
Speculation about where the orbs came from appeared to become more concrete when the Australian Space Agency became involved, with Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University offering some clarity on the matter.
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"So the fact that there's reportedly three tanks means it's either a very large satellite," Tucker revealed in an interview with 7 News, "or indeed the upper stage of a rocket."
This perspective was echoed by Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist at Flinders University and expert in 'space junk', who indicated to The Guardian that "this suggests they might be from a rocket stage – perhaps a first or second stage – that has fallen back to Earth while the rest of the stage goes on to deliver a payload into space."
The large nature of Australia as a country from a land mass perspective makes it more likely than most places for space debris to find its way back on land, and objects such as these can sometimes be found years after a launch.
It does continue to raise questions about the impact that debris falling from space can have on the environment, especially in the wake of projects from NASA that would see structures as large as the International Space Station (ISS) crash down onto our planet.
Most controlled space debris ends up in the sea – typically in some of the world's most remote areas, including one known as the 'spacecraft cemetery' – but some scientists have claimed that this also poses a risk to the ocean's ecosystems, especially as nobody is technically liable to clean up the mess caused by these operations.
There remains the risk that falling debris like the orbs found on the beach could create a risk for humans, as unlike the deorbit procedures for satellites or space stations, these pieces of space junk fall freely out of the sky with no clear indication of where or when they will land.
