Mysterious ‘empty trash bag’ orbiting Earth leaves astronomers surprised

Astronomers have been left curious after they recently spotted a mysterious space junk, resembling an ‘empty trash bag’, orbiting the Earth.

The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope spotted an ‘empty trash bag’ orbiting the Earth, which was later conformed to be a leftover debris from a rocket launch resembling the shape of a trash bag.

The space garbage, named A10bMLz, was later looked closely by the Northolt Branch Observatories that reported that the object is really lightweight having a high area-to-mass ratio, similar to a big piece of plastic wrap, as per CNET.

“This suggests that it is what is known as an ‘empty trash bag object’: A piece of light material (probably metallic foil), left over from a rocket launch. It is not clear yet when A10bMLz has been launched.”

As per Daily Mail, the debris, several meters across, was spotted only 600km above Earth’s surface orbiting in an unusual orbit – the trait that actually caught astronomers’ attention. The object takes 1.4 times the distance to the moon at its farthest pole.

The small mass of A10bMLz also means that the debris could be easily pushed by just the radiation pressure coming off the sun, changing its orbit unpredictably. Astronomers believe that the ‘empty trash bag’ could burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere within a few months.