Trash in orbit
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on September 23, 2002 at 9:39:32 PM
An old Stage 3 Saturn 5 rocket is still up in Earth's orbit, after escaping and coming back. Eventually it'll fall and burn up.
Quote
When an amateur astronomer discovered the object two weeks ago, space enthusiasts speculated that it might be a natural Earth satellite. The reason is that it travels in an erratic orbit, which suggested that the planet had snagged a wandering space rock.
The Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, a clearinghouse for minor planet and comet discoveries, plotted its course and determined that it most likely was a section of a Saturn 5 rocket, which took Apollo astronauts to the moon between 1969 and 1972.