Black Knight "Satellite"

[Armada]

I came across an article on this a few weeks ago and have to admit it has caught my attention.

 

So the back story:

 

On the first shuttle mission to the I.S.S. Flight STS-88 On the shuttle Endeavour, while en route to the I.S.S. recording the surroundings of the flight and the mission the Ship and crew caught some unusual images of an object within Earths upper atmosphere in the polar region of Earth.

 

Original NASA Images:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/images/ISD/highres/STS088/STS088-724-66_3.JPG

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/images/ISD/highres/STS088/STS088-724-67_3.JPG

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/images/ISD/highres/STS088/STS088-724-68_3.JPG

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/images/ISD/highres/STS088/STS088-724-69_3.JPG

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/images/ISD/highres/STS088/STS088-724-70_3.JPG

 

Although they have no official explanation as to what it is, the most prominent theories are natural space debris (a "natural" satellite"), an old cold war satellite, either Soviet or American.

 

After looking in to both theories (Top chosen ones at least)

The idea of a piece of natural space debris getting caught in our orbit is next to impossible, as once items from space come within our orbit they are immediatly drawn towards the center, and upon entering the outer higher orbit are almost guaranteed to increase descent towards earth from the gravitational pull.

 

As for the second theory of a cold war satellite, all historical record of satellites from this time, None exist in this design, shape or configuration, or even remotly close.

 

 

But it does not stop there.  Some theories get even wilder.  Back in the 1920's Telsa reported receiving radio signals from space in the same area/location as it was later discovered to be the location of this Black Knight object.  And later in the 50's french fishermen using Ham radio again reported receiving signals again which seemed to be comming from the same location.

 

Anyone have opinions or thoughts on this?  As I noted its rather caught my curiosity.

[ajnl]

Why haven't they picked it up yet?

[RedBaird]

Back in the 1920's Telsa reported receiving radio signals from space in the same area/location as it was later discovered to be the location of this Black Knight object.  And later in the 50's french fishermen using Ham radio again reported receiving signals again which seemed to be comming from the same location.

A signal "from the same location" seems improbable as it's height above the Earth is too low to be in geo-synchronous orbit, like a communications satellite. It's line-of-sight over the reported receivers would change every day, if it did not overfly them several times a day. I would be surprised if a signal-source that Tesla received in near-earth-orbit would still be orbiting, unless it is in a long-decaying orbit and was much higher in his day.

 

I suppose the Shuttle astronauts could determine that it was not just a paint-fleck a meter away from them. A larger object in lower orbit would appear to them to be traveling faster than their own orbital speed.  TRACKING SPACE JUNK

---

Here is a fascinating explanation from  Skeptoid.dom:  The Black Knight Satellite   , where they say what while the STS-88 was up, "During one of the astronauts' EVAs, a thermal blanket was lost and drifted away — silver on one side and black on the other. It was photographed extensively. It was crumpled and formed an odd shape. If you didn't know what to expect, the average person would have no clue what it was. But, unfortunately for the legend and fortunately for the astronauts, it simply wasn't an alien satellite."

 

That article also says that the Black Knight object is supposedly in near-polar orbit, which means that the shuttle and the object would not be travelling in the similar orbits, but crossing paths at thousands of km per hour, too fast for the astronauts to have seen, let alone photograph, the object.

 

It is a fun story, anyway!  Myth and legend are fun, but build your bridges based on engineering principles.

 

 

 

[Armada]

A thermal blanket would certianly explain its supposid "changing shape" as noted through numerous of the taken images.

 

As for the Telsa and French Fisherman stories, I included that int he post primarily as alternative theories, however my initial thoughts on those stories was considering the technology that was available at both time periods and as good as Telsa was, both were speaking about Radio waves, and thus is exceptional hard to pin point true original sources, more so back then than now.

 

I have always found space interesting, there is a whole lot of stuff out there and we still know so little about it all.

[ajnl]

A signal "from the same location" seems improbable as it's height above the Earth is too low to be in geo-synchronous orbit, like a communications satellite. It's line-of-sight over the reported receivers would change every day, if it did not overfly them several times a day. I would be surprised if a signal-source that Tesla received in near-earth-orbit would still be orbiting, unless it is in a long-decaying orbit and was much higher in his day.

Oh of course, I completely missed that.

[JoeDirt]

Space debris, comes from a roll that contains images of other space debris http://postimg.org/image/r5dvhs04/

[Armada]

Space debris, comes from a roll that contains images of other space debris http://postimg.org/image/r5dvhs04/

It IS that specific image that started me on this to begin with.

 

Debrise loooks like a LOT of things, but this one image looks eerily like a up to date for, or satellite.

Like I noted in the original post I have no iddea what it is, but its caused myself to theorize

 

After further though, IF Telsa/ or the fishermans were right a thermal blanket woud reflect radio waves...  but the timing is all wrong.

[Rabidraccoon]

Skeptoid had an article on it.  

 

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4365

 

Pretty good explanation of all of the reports.