After a long lapse, a new entrant to the Puzzle Series… What is this, or what do you want it to be?
23 responses to “What’s That? (#108) Puzzle Series”
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Knowing that you are a collector of space related objects. I think this is a Space Ball, perhaps specifically a helium pressure sphere with micro meteorite impacts on the surface.
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My first thought was Europa (Jupiter’s moon)… but then I thought of all the wrong guesses I’ve made in the past…. so I’ll go with a photomicrograph of ball tip from a pen…. 😉 Yeah, either one, or something in between… 😉
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This one is easy! On the evening before his attack on Damascus in 1918, Lawrence of Arabia challenged Prince Faisal to a game of billiards, the winner to “take all” and get to rule that piece of the Ottoman Empire after the war.
Unfortunately the game was interrupted by a Haboob (sandstorm) and the game never finished – thus the perennial unrest about dominance in that part of the world that persists nearly 100 years later.
One of the ivory billiard balls can still be seen today at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford – severely dinged by the ravages of the sandstorm. This is a macro photo of that ball. (The blue chalk marks and scar from the end of Faisal’s billiard cue after a particularly angry shot are still visible)
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A close-up of a kitchen tile in the Jurvetson household after a cooking experiment?
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@jitze1942 – love it!
I recall from past puzzles a request to let it run for a few hours even if someone is really close. Do we want to do that, to allow more time for gems like Jitze’s?
Oh, and the most precisely correct answer wins, with special credit for the first to get close. =)
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Hmm.. Definitely Space-related given your interests, little gouges are likely from micrometeor impacts or from launch + reentry stresses, oxidation marks mean it was exposed to either air for long period of time or sea for short period of time, no visible honeycomb means it’s probably not a heat shield, round edge on bottom right & distortion indicate something roundish in shape.. So..
One of those odd ‘Buna Spheres’?
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The pressure sphere’s I referenced in my guess were like the one(s) found in Africa or South America.
Some of the photos of this Salyut 7/Kosmos 1686 Helium Tank debris look almost the same: http://www.bimsociety.org/gallery/Salyut%207%20-%20Kosmos%201686... -
Bingo @kt , ever the master!! You not only got very close right out of the chute, you also nailed it specifically. This is a man-made meteorite. Instead of landing in the ocean, this Russian space station de-orbited early and landed in Argentina. It recently arrived at DFJ to join a fuel tank from the same fall, and a large substructure element is still in shipping.
Here are the details from the link Kevin provided: “This is a helium tank from the Russian Salyut 7-Cosmos 1686 (Kosmos 1686) spacecraft assembly, which went out of control and fell to Earth as a fireball, 3 to 4 years earlier than expected. Controllers put the spacecraft into a spin and tried to control the impact into the Atlantic Ocean as 70Kg of fuel still remained onboard. This attempt failed and after a bright fireball that was witnessed by many local people, some fragments fell near the town of Capitan Bermudez, 400 Km from Buenos Aires, Argentina at 01:00 local time on 7th February 1991.
The 14 inch diameter, 7.4Kg, mostly titanium sphere is peppered with several hundred perfectly formed craters caused by tiny micrometeoroids which impacted on the surface during it’s many years in space. Opposing ends have a mounting rod and a coupling/inlet valve respectively – each has ablated heavily during re-entry and streamers of molten material have been blown back onto the leading faces of the sphere, clearly showing the orientation of flight. Dark scorching on one side of the main body is evidence that the sphere "flipped" during flight as external mountings and couplings broke/ablated away, and for a brief few moments this side was the leading edge before orienting itself once more. This dark patch of side scorching also shows a much lighter coloured "shadow" band where another part of the spacecraft, or possibly the departing mounting rod, momentarily protected this part of the sphere from scorching…..and left an outline image of itself in the process.
Due to its almost perfectly spherical shape and the high melting point of its titanium chemistry, the main body of the sphere escaped complete ablation of it’s surface, thus preserving the many micrometeoroid craters. However, the irregularly shaped mounting rod and the opposing coupling/inlet valve have a thick layer of dark fusion crust (!!) with fine flow lines that are similar to the surface of a freshly recovered iron meteorite.
Some of the crater "pits" were undoubtedly caused by other parts of the spacecraft that were ablating in front of the spherical tank during atmospheric passage and also by other man-made orbiting debris from earlier space missions that impacted during it’s 9+ years in space……fine particulate matter such as paint flecks, booster vapours and even dumped astronauts’ urine!!!!!
This tank has been the subject of much study with SEM research into the composition of the craters. A scientific research paper entitled: "Analysis of Impact Residues on Spacecraft Surfaces: Possibilities and Problems" has been written about this Salyut helium tank and was presented at the 3rd European Conference on Space Debris, with a proceedings paper.”
Zooming out:
The placard from the Argentine that found it
Travel manifest for this one…
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Whoaahhh!!! The Rocketeer is the puzzle master! How many puzzles did you win already?! Congratulations!!
I didn’t know about this story, super interesting. Is there any other de-orbited stuff up there? I will start to look to the sky more often, just in case…
Awesome puzzle! And glad to see them back!
Happy (almost) New Year to all!! |-)
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That was fun! I especially enjoyed the myriad of ideas of what it might be. Jitze Couperus wins for the most creative and almost had me convinced with the colored chalk description of the smudge on the sphere. Bravo, Steve! I hope there are more of these in 2015!
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Come to think of it, those micro-meteorite craters are locations of natural meteorites embedded in what became a man-made meteorite.
In addition to the Salyut helium tank in this puzzle, the Salyut fuel tank and the heavy iron meteorite we used for an infrared demo at the Sentinel Mission fund-raising event.. they all landed in Gisela’s hood:
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