Mystery of ‘silver balls’ appearing on Australia’s beaches finally solved

We finally know why weird silver balls have been appearing on beaches in Queensland, Australia.

Six metal spheres washed up on Friday, Saturday and Sunday near Forrest Beach, a seaside community 10 miles southeast of Ingham.

Hazmat-suit-clad firefighters, space experts and national emergency officials have been scratching their heads as to what these objects are.

Five of the chrome balls were placed in drums, with the police enforcing a 160ft exclusion zone over fears they’re ‘toxic’.

Local Trevor Kyle told the Australian Broadcasting Network that the first orb was found by a crab fisherman, who was told to ditch his pot by cops.

Kyle initially shrugged it off as a buoy but began to worry when he saw officers flood the beach.

‘You could see that it was getting bigger and bigger and there were questions of the bomb squad being involved, SES maybe, firies, ambo,’ he added.

But the Australian Space Agency revealed on Monday what these spheres most likely are – ‘space balls’.

‘Space balls’ (no, not the 1980s movie) is a rather goofy word for pressurised balls of fuel used in rockets.

The agency said on X: ‘The objects’ location and characteristics are consistent with debris from a foreign rocket body that recently re-entered the atmosphere from orbit.’

They’re a common form of space junk, with roughly 15,800 tonnes of old satellites and rocket scraps now crowding the cosmos above our heads.

This somewhat aligns with what experts originally assumed the balls were – a fuel tank or bladder tank containing hydrazine, a highly volatile propellant, from an old rocket. Hence why emergency responders were so on edge about them.

But Aussie space officials stressed that the orbs are safe.

‘The Agency is continuing to engage with international authorities to formally confirm the launch vehicle and launching state,’ it added.

Speculation was rife online given the ball’s lack of scorch marks – temperature during reentry can exceed 1,500°C.

Yet Dr Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist nicknamed ‘Dr Space Junk’, told the Australian Broadcasting Network that there’s a reason for that.

The associate professor at Flinders University said the balls are made of titanium alloy, which can withstand blistering heat.

‘Many rockets and spacecraft have liquid fuel systems that involve fuels under high pressure that are in these pressure vessels made of robust material,’ she said.

‘These parts of the fuel system often survive because their melting points are higher than the temperature coming back through the atmosphere.’

She added that Australia is a dumping ground for space junk, with the country a signatory to the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty.

This means the launching state retains ownership of the launch material.

Given the sheer size of Australia, washed-up space junk is common and will get more so as rocket and artificial satellite launches increase.

A trunk from one of Elon Musk’s rockets, the SpaceX Dragon, crashed onto a beach in New South Wales in 2022.

Then, a pressure vessel from an Indian launch vehicle washed up in Western Australia in 2023 – India did not request the debris back.

The Australian Space Agency recommends that if you find some space junk crashed into your garden or on a beach, to:

• Do not handle the debris. Space objects are built from a range of materials that may be hazardous.
• Contact the local authorities. 
• Notify space officials.

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