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Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

thespacereview.com

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Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#51

Post by neurostimulant »

adzm wrote: post #14
JacobAldridge wrote: post #13

An interesting note right at the end, so in case anyone missed it: this same launch is believed to be the source of 5 titanium "spaceballs" that fell onto New Zealand in 1972. While the odds are low of any space debris hitting land, it was the photo in this article that surprised me - I was thinking billiard ball size debris, not this - http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/4542804/Government-report-o...

That article mentions them dangling a wrist watch over the space ball to see if it was radioactive. How would this work?

If it's a digital / quartz watch, it might stop working if the electronics got too much radiation.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#52

Post by Terry_Roll »

> The balls, which had Russian markings, were used to pressurise fuel tanks or as stabilisation jets, the report states.

Spent a bit of time in the metal trade, sometimes various metals that can best be described as oddities from Sheffield would be heading south, one such time some metal pieces were on this lorry no bigger than a chunk of cheese or hash brown thats broken off, clearly its been part of a larger plate of metal, but its magnetic strength was so strong it needed a screw driver to leverage it off anything it was stuck to. Never seen anything as strong magnetically since, but it had became a sort of competition with people/visitors asked to try to pull it off what other metal it was stuck to.

> 20 kilogram, titanium sphere, > It is not something you would sell to a scrap dealer,'' he said.

The titanium being sold as scrap would come down in bars which had been angle-grinded all over to produce long metal splinters so that it could only be handled with a fork lift, the splinters would go through gloves if you tried to handle it. That shows to what lengths some scrap metals were "processed" in order to avoid being stolen.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#53

Post by pvg »

perihelions wrote: post #50
pvg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I didn't realize they fired quite that many (31?!) BES-5s into space and those are really the only non-experimental ones. Still, the chances of one of those falling out of orbit as a functioning reactor are about nil.

The posterior probability, given that you've already found a very rare piece of space debris, would have been high. https://xkcd.com/795/ (By the way, there's an documented instance [0] mentioned in the sibling comments. The hazard is much worse than you'd think: the space reactor didn't simply fall in one piece, but left a trail of fragments 600 km long, some of which were lethally radioactive. It's pretty lucky thi…

Yes but those dangers are the dangers of radioactive material - it's naturally 'hot', much of it also chemically toxic, etc. It's not core-at-criticality-that-murders-you-as-you-stand-next-to-it type of dangerous. I think that's still an essentially hypothetical danger of nuclear space junk.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#55

Post by twic »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #13

An interesting note right at the end, so in case anyone missed it: this same launch is believed to be the source of 5 titanium "spaceballs" that fell onto New Zealand in 1972. While the odds are low of any space debris hitting land, it was the photo in this article that surprised me - I was thinking billiard ball size debris, not this - http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/4542804/Government-report-o...

NZ is home to other mysterious balls:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#56

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
russellbeattie wrote: post #9

If a chunk of Soviet space junk falls on someone's house, does the Russian Federation just shrug and say, "That was the USSR, bruh, sorry." They must have assumed responsibility for the Soviet space program, right? It's sort of like firing a bullet into the air... Doesn't matter how long it takes to come down, it's still your fault if it kills someone.

It seems unlikely that terminal velocity of a bullet would be terribly dangerous.

That's surely something mentioned immediately prior to the awarding of a Darwin award.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#57

Post by Gordonjcp »

taylorfinley wrote: post #2

Napkin math: earth's surface area is ~510 million square kilometers. The lander is described as fitting in a 1-meter protective shell. So we have a roughly 1 in 510 billion chance of standing in the lucky spot. (This of course would only be accurate if all square meters of the earth's surface were equally likely to be hit. Not the case since the lander appears to be orbiting the equator.)

That's assuming it comes straight down. Given that most people are somewhere around one to two metres tall, if it came in at a shallow angle it could ruin hundreds of people's day.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#58

Post by sokoloff »

cek wrote: post #49
JacobAldridge wrote: post #13

An interesting note right at the end, so in case anyone missed it: this same launch is believed to be the source of 5 titanium "spaceballs" that fell onto New Zealand in 1972. While the odds are low of any space debris hitting land, it was the photo in this article that surprised me - I was thinking billiard ball size debris, not this - http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/4542804/Government-report-o...

Wild coincidence or destiny? I’m in the space industry. I’ve wanted to visit NZ for ever. Here now, finally. 3 days ago I toured the Ashburton museum and saw this ball. Now this gets posted on HN which I’ve been ignoring for the last year.

We’re all just NPCs and there is only so much processing power in the Matrix, so we have to focus on areas close to the users.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#59

Post by RealityVoid »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #57
taylorfinley wrote: post #2

Napkin math: earth's surface area is ~510 million square kilometers. The lander is described as fitting in a 1-meter protective shell. So we have a roughly 1 in 510 billion chance of standing in the lucky spot. (This of course would only be accurate if all square meters of the earth's surface were equally likely to be hit. Not the case since the lander appears to be orbiting the equator.)

That's assuming it comes straight down. Given that most people are somewhere around one to two metres tall, if it came in at a shallow angle it could ruin hundreds of people's day.

I think the shallow angle is unlikely since all horizont speed is not going to be compensated by anything, once it's gone by air friction, it's gone. Whereas vertical speed is helped by gravity. It of course depends on the initial velocity, but I doubt it's high enough for it to be an issue.

Re: Kosmos 482: questions around a failed 1972 Venera lander still orbiting Earth

#60

Post by greggsy »

nynx wrote: post #15
adzm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article mentions them dangling a wrist watch over the space ball to see if it was radioactive. How would this work?

Perhaps tritium in the watch hands.

That’s what I was thinking when I read it. I have no idea if tritium emits more radioluminescence near a source though.
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