Man-made Meteorite

a titanium tank from a Russian space station that deorbited in Argentina. It has a flange on the far side that acted as an aerodynamic tail, keeping the side facing us pointing into the hot plasma, like a failing heat shield (original context below). Having spent 8.8 years in space, it is covered with micrometeorite craters.

The Russian Salyut 7 / Cosmos 1686 (Kosmos 1686) spacecraft assembly went out of control and fell to Earth as a fireball in 1991—effectively becoming a manufacured meteorite, and one of the largest human-made objects to ever re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. From the British & Irish Meteorite Society: “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.”