Joining stars, planets, nebulas, and galaxies as a target for skywatchers is now a surprisingly bright tool bag floating through the space around Earth.
The bag of tools gave NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara the slip on Nov. 2, 2023, as they were conducting a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station (ISS).
European Space Agency (ESA) reserve astronaut Meganne Christian shared footage of the moment the tool bag escaped the grasp of Moghbeli on her X account.
Also on X, Harvard Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astronomer Jonathan McDowell revealed that the bag is circling Earth in a roughly 258 by 258 mile (415 by 416 kilometer) orbit.
In 2008, as NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper attempted to repair a jammed gear on an ISS solar panel, she lost her grip on another tool bag with then circled our planet.
Late NASA astronaut Piers Sellers lost his grip on the kitchen implement as he was using it to spread heat-shield repair slime during the space shuttle Discovery’s flight STS-121 in 2006.
The original article contains 479 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Joining stars, planets, nebulas, and galaxies as a target for skywatchers is now a surprisingly bright tool bag floating through the space around Earth.
The bag of tools gave NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara the slip on Nov. 2, 2023, as they were conducting a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station (ISS).
European Space Agency (ESA) reserve astronaut Meganne Christian shared footage of the moment the tool bag escaped the grasp of Moghbeli on her X account.
Also on X, Harvard Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astronomer Jonathan McDowell revealed that the bag is circling Earth in a roughly 258 by 258 mile (415 by 416 kilometer) orbit.
In 2008, as NASA astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper attempted to repair a jammed gear on an ISS solar panel, she lost her grip on another tool bag with then circled our planet.
Late NASA astronaut Piers Sellers lost his grip on the kitchen implement as he was using it to spread heat-shield repair slime during the space shuttle Discovery’s flight STS-121 in 2006.
The original article contains 479 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I find it oddly comforting that even for astronauts in space, many repairs still consist of smearing various types of schmoo on things.
The only person I know of who really uses the word schmoo is Linus. Are you Linus?