A mystery object that washed up on a remote beach in Western Australia has been removed as authorities try to find out where it came from. For now, investigators believe it is most likely debris from space.
The automobile-sized canister was found Monday at Green Head, a small coastal town, 250 kilometers north of Perth.
The large copper-colored cylinder was covered in barnacles when it was dragged out of the water by locals using their four-wheel drive vehicle. The mystery object is about 2.5 meters across and 2.5 meters long.
It has since been removed by the authorities. The military and the Australian Space Agency are working with the police to find out what it is and where it came from.
It is not thought to have been part of a commercial aircraft.
Brad Tucker is an astrophysicist from the Australian National University.
He told VOA Wednesday that the mystery object might be a discarded fuel cylinder from an Indian rocket.
“A lot of people are leaning towards space junk, probably part of a rocket," he said. "It is not 100% identified but there is a lot of similarities in the design, the materials and the structure to parts of a rocket. A lot of people are thinking one of the Indian rockets, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. But [it] also does resemble generally other parts of rockets. So, given the nature of it that is kind of the leading theory at this point.”
Tucker says that one crucial clue the cylinder is likely to have is an identifying serial or catalogue number.
“With most bits of space junk or parts of spacecraft, there are catalogue and part numbers.," he said. When bits of a Space-X capsule broke apart in eastern Australia, New South Wales, last year, I went down to the farmers, and we worked on identifying it and on the large pieces there are numbers on it. It will not say, you know, ‘if found, please return to India or China!’”
Western Australian police said in a statement Tuesday that the unidentified items that washed up north of Perth are space debris “and will be managed as such until it can be determined otherwise.”
