Another day, another load of orbital trash washing up on our shores. This time, the Australian Space Agency thinks it has solved the riddle of those bizarre, metallic spheres that littered a northern Queensland beach over the weekend.
They found six of them. They were sitting on Forrest Beach, just north of Townsville. Locals stared. The internet speculated. Now, the bureaucrats in Canberra say these things look suspiciously like pressure vessels ripped from a foreign space launch vehicle. They are currently whispering with international partners to figure out exactly whose rocket dropped its garbage into our backyard.
Naturally, the cops panicked. Queensland’s fire department quickly slapped a 50-meter exclusion zone around the site. They warned the public to stay far away. Don’t touch them. Don’t even look at them too hard.
Why the drama? Because space fuel is nasty stuff. Rumors swirled online that these spheres were propellant tanks, meaning they could still be sweating highly volatile, toxic chemicals. Soon enough, guys in full hazmat suits were spotted hauling the spheres into secure barrels under heavy police guard.
Forrest Beach is usually dead quiet. Lisa Scobie, who runs the local takeaway joint, told the ABC that the sudden circus of cops and scientists brought some rare excitement to the sleepy town.
According to the space agency, the location of the debris and its charred state perfectly match the trajectory of a foreign rocket body that recently took a fiery plunge back through the atmosphere.
This isn’t Australia’s first time playing garbage collector for the global space race. Just last year, a massive, barnacle-encrusted metal dome washed up on a beach near Perth. After some finger-pointing, India finally admitted the junk belonged to one of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles.
Go back to 2011, and a nearly identical sphere turned up in the middle of a Namibian grassland. Back then, researchers concluded it was a hydrazine fuel tank from an unmanned rocket. Hydrazine is incredibly toxic. So if you happen to stumble upon a giant, metallic ball during your morning beach walk, do yourself a favor. Walk away.
