SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets are powered by powerful Merlin engines. The American company, owned by Elon Musk, has been very active in placing several satellites in space, among which are those of its own global Internet, starlink, but not only! On one of his recent trips into space, one of the rocket’s engine sections fell to the ground in a farmer’s backyard, in São Mateus do Sul, Paraná, Brazil.
The massive coin has been identified by astronomers as being part of Falcon 9, which was seen re-entering the sky at that location on the 8th of this month.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 coin falls in the backyard
According to the gate RDX, the piece found in São Mateus do Sul is about 4 meters long and 6 meters in diameter. The post mentions that farmer Joao Ricardo found the piece. The man said he found the object on Wednesday morning (16) while wandering around the family property.
At first he thought it was a tent, but when he realized it was something metal, he remembered the noises he had heard in the early hours of the eighth day.
The images above show the return of a SpaceX rocket in its second stage over the area.
The Brazilian Meteorological Monitoring Network noted that São Mateus do Sul is practically under the re-entry trajectory observed the previous week. When analyzing the metal that fell to the ground, they found it strange that it did not evaporate on return.
This is the exhaust of the Merlin 1D engine used on the second stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The similarities are noted in the image below and are in the weld seams and in the rivet holes that can be seen in the two bodies.
Another important feature of this piece is its composition. This exhaust tip is made of niobium and titanium alloy, which gives the structure additional resistance to high temperatures.
It is likely that these properties could explain the resistance of a metal when passing through the atmosphere and falling without completely melting.
Space debris from the launch of the geostationary Turksat 5B satellite
According to what is known, this space junk was the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched on December 19 last year from the US Space Force base in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The rocket launched the geostationary Turksat 5B satellite into space. It is equipment manufactured by Airbus Defense and Space, in Toulouse, France, and owned by Turkish operator Turksat, developed for military and commercial purposes.
This new situation leads us to leave the question that does not want to be silenced:
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