In January 2016, three metal balls landed in a remote northern province of Vietnam called Tuyen Quang. They are reportedly space junk, debris from structures orbiting the Earth, which fell through the atmosphere and struck the surface of our planet. When a satellite has outlived its usefulness, it is either pushed further into space, into what is called “graveyard” orbit, or it is brought down to burn up in the atmosphere. Those which stay up create a junkyard field around the planet.
When SQ-37 failed to reach graveyard orbit, the decision was made to bring it down over the Pacific Ocean. There were…complications.
Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash
Synkroniciti’s November 30th issue will have the theme of space. The submission period is open through October 16th and we will be posting a prompt every day on the subject. You are welcome to use this prompt to generate creative work. If you like, you can submit the work to us–but you aren’t required to do so. If you submit, please follow the procedure on our submissions page. We charge a $3 fee, which you can pay on the page.