Washington: A mysterious space junk tagged as 'WT1190F' re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere as predicted above the Indian Ocean, just off the southern tip of Sri Lanka on Friday.
Also Read: Mysterious space junk to crash into Earth in November
Just after 1:18 AM EST (6:18 AM UTC) on Friday, November 13, the object - most likely man-made space debris from some previous lunar or interplanetary mission - burned up on reentry and was not a threat to anyone on Earth due to its low density and small size (3-6 feet or 1-2 meters), according to a NASA press release.
Video credit: Astronomy Center/YouTube
It is said that only people located in the southern province of Sri Lanka had a chance to spot it.
Also Read: See pic: Pluto goes all psychedelic in new NASA image!
Friday's event was the first time that experts had calculated the exact time and location a piece of space junk would re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
Also Read: Is the world going to end in 2015?
The object was detected while still on a large elongated orbit about the Earth on October 3 by the Catalina Sky Survey, a lab at the University of Arizona, Tucson, aimed at discovering asteroids and comets that swing close to Earth.
The US Air Force Space Command had primary responsibility for tracking it, though NASA was also interested in tracking this object because its final trajectory was entering Earth’s atmosphere at an angle more like an asteroid from interplanetary space than of a typical piece of space debris.
