"Space Balls" fall in Vietnam

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Vietnam probes mysterious 'space balls'

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Vietnam's military is investigating the appearance of three mysterious metal balls -- believed to be debris from space -- which landed in the country's remote north, a senior army official said Friday.


Two metal balls were discovered in northwestern Yen Bai province on January 2, army spokesman Lieutenant General Vo Van Tuan told AFP.

Later a larger ball weighing some 45 kilograms (100 pounds) landed in a maize field in neighbouring Tuyen Quang province, he said.

"We are still identifying where they came from," he said, adding the army had determined they did not contain explosives or hazardous material.

The metal balls fell from the sky, he said, scaring local residents.

"Before and after these objects were discovered, the Vietnamese army was not conducting any military activity in the region," Tuan said.

Witnesses told state-run media that they heard what sounded like thunder before the balls plunged to the earth.

The Ministry of Defence has pledged to release the findings of the probe.

Thanh Nien newspaper said that the initial investigation suggested the objects could have been made in Russia and come from missiles or spaceships.

Nguyen Khoa Son, a professor from the Vietnamese Space Science and Technology Program, told the VietnamNet news site that the balls might be the result of a failed satellite launch.

He said the balls did not appear to be damaged and could have fallen from an altitude of less than 100 kilometres (62 miles).

In November, three mysterious objects also fell from the sky onto Spain's southeast.

According to NASA, more than 500,000 pieces of debris are currently orbiting Earth, and bits of space junk plummet to the planet every year.
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This isn't the first time these items have fallen from space. Interesting to me is the fact they appear to be the same kind of items? Not just random space junk. What are these things?
 
This appears to be a hydrazine tank used for satellites and orbiters. They are quite common and will usually fall in groups over time in close proximity to each other.
Thanks for the link. I read that these are made of titanium which may be why they did not burn up while falling in the earth's atmosphere. Why is there not a bigger crater when it hit the earth ?
 
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