Metallic space balls found on Australian beach

AustraliaMetallic space balls found on Australian beachMysterious metal spheres washed up on the shore of a quiet Northern Queensland town over the weekend.Listen to this article with a free profile00:0000:00ShareAdd NBC News to GoogleJuly 10, 2026, 3:23 PM EDTBy Sophie ZiedalskiMysterious metal spheres washed ashore on a northern Australia beach, and officials say the unidentified floating objects are literal space balls — although there’s no known affiliation with the Mel Brooks comedy classic “Spaceballs.”Subscribe to read this story ad-freeGet unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Several of the metallic objects were discovered on Forrest Beach, a small quiet coastal town in Queensland, the Australian Space Agency announced Sunday on X.The unknown objects were later identified as “space debris” by the ASA, most likely from a rocket that recently re-entered Earth’s atmosphere from orbit.“The recovered objects appear to be pressure vessels from a space launch vehicle,” the agency said on X.Queensland Fire and Resue said on X its crews closed off part of the beach to help partner agencies like the ASA inspect and recover the objects, which were determined to be safe.Though unusual, space debris crashing into Earth is not uncommon. It can be a result of a variety of space objects re-entering Earth, the ASA said on its official site, including satellites or space vehicles that do not completely burn up as they pass through the atmosphere.This is the third encounter Australia has had with space debris in the last five years, the ASA said. The most recent being a large pressure vessel that washed up in Western Australia in 2023.Most returning space objects have a planned re-entering site, usually in remote areas or the ocean, according to the agency. Some objects, however, survive uncontrolled re-entry, making it more difficult to predict where debris will land.The Australian government has plans in place for incidents where space debris may impact...