A tool bag that was dropped by Nasa astronauts carrying out a job on the International Space Station (ISS) will be visible to the UK this week.
Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara accidentally fumbled the bag while fixing a solar panel on the International Space Station (ISS), 2,550 miles above the Earth, earlier this month.
Astronomers from the Virtual Telescope Project on the ground have since spotted the bag orbiting the planet a few minutes ahead of the ISS.
Experts say amateurs should be able to see the bag using binoculars or a telescope in the coming days.
The bag has been classified as space junk and given the ID number 58229/1998-067WC.
Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa accidentally photographed the bag while he was trying to capture Mount Fuji from the ISS, as he passed his home country.
Afterwards, Ms Moghbeli told mission control: “In the most improbable of events, Satoshi was actually… taking photos of Mount Fuji and also captured a nice photo of a lost item, the nice crew lock bag from yesterday. It wanted to see Mount Fuji, I guess.”
But how will you be able to see the bag lost in space? Here is everything we know.
What is the lost bag?
Last seen by @Astro_Satoshi while floating over Mount Fuji 🗻 the 'Orbital Police' can confirm that the lost EVA gear is being tracked 🫡 https://t.co/wz4MITmAfM pic.twitter.com/eksfu9fPFw
— Dr Meganne Christian (@astro_meganne) November 5, 2023
The bag was filled with tools to allow engineers to complete a job that needed doing on the International Space Station. One of the solar panels that is used to operate the station needed an update and so astronauts went out to fix this.
The astronauts – Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara – were on a rare all-female space walk to make the necessary amendments to the exterior panel but misplaced the bag with the tools inside.
However, both of the engineers were successful in the mission, which involved replacing one of the 12 trundle-bearing assemblies on the "port solar alpha rotary joint" – this is the part of the ISS that tracks the sun and generates enough electricity to power the station.
In a blog post on the adventure on the Nasa website it states: "Mission Control told the station crew that the solar array is functioning well after the bearing replacement. Spacewalkers also removed a handling bar fixture to prepare for future installation of a roll-out solar array and properly configured a cable that was previously interfering with an external camera."
But the bag used to carry out these fixes was misplaced.
It continued: "During the activity, one tool bag was inadvertently lost. Flight controllers spotted the tool bag using external station cameras. The tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk. Mission Control analyzed the bag’s trajectory and determined that risk of recontacting the station is low and that the onboard crew and space station are safe with no action required."
When can you see it floating above the UK?
Astronomers from the Virtual Telescope Project on the ground have since spotted the bag orbiting the planet a few minutes ahead of the ISS.
Experts say amateurs should be able to see the bag using binoculars or a telescope.
Depending on the weather, people in southern Britain have the highest chance of viewing the bag between 6.24pm and 6.34pm on Tuesday.
But the best time to look for it will be on November 24, between 5.30pm and 5.41pm.
Can the Nasa bag harm me?
The force of a heavy tool bag dropping from space would cause quite an impact and would certainly be deadly.
However, there is no chance of the bag hitting anyone on Earth, as it will burn up in the atmosphere.
This is expected to happen next summer.
Has this happened before?
It has! Weirdly, exactly 15 years ago to the month, the same thing happened to astronauts Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steve Bowen.
According to Nasa, the bag lost in 2008 contained "two grease guns, scrapers, several wipes and tethers, and some tool caddies."
