A UFO from space hits a United Airlines flight over Utah
National transportation The safety board confirmed Sunday that it is investigating an airliner that had an object hit its windshield while flying over Utah.
“The NTSB collects radar, weather and flight recorder data,” the federal agency said in a statement. X social networking site. “The windshield is being sent to NTSB laboratories for examination.”
The attack occurred Thursday, during a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles. Photos shared on social media It showed that one of the two large windows in the front of the 737 Max plane had suffered major cracks. Related images also reveal the pilot’s arm being cut several times by what appear to be small glass shards.
The origin of the object is uncertain
Flight captain It is said He described the object that collided with the plane as “space debris.” But this has not been confirmed.
After the collision, the plane landed safely at Salt Lake City International Airport after its course was diverted.
Images of the raid showed that an object collided forcefully near the upper right part of the window, showing damage to the metal frame. Because airplane windows are made up of several thick layers, with wooden sheets in between, the window pane is not completely shattered. The plane was flying above 30,000 feet — likely around 36,000 feet — and the cockpit appeared to maintain cabin pressure.
Was that space debris? It is impossible to know without more data. Very few bird species can fly above 30,000 feet. However, the highest flying bird in the world, Ruble eagleIt is found mainly in Africa. An unregulated weather balloon was also likely, although it is not clear whether the speed was high enough to cause the type of damage observed. Hail is also a possible culprit.
Assuming this was not the case Shohei Ohtani’s home runThe only other possible cause of damage is an object from space.
This was the pilot’s initial conclusion, but a meteorite is more likely than space debris. Estimates vary, however Recent study In the magazine Geology It was found that about 17,000 meteorites hit the Earth in a given year. This is at least greater than the amount of human-made space debris that survives reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.
Careful analysis of the glass and metal affected by the object should be able to reveal its origin.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.