Misterious spheres falling from the sky in Vietnam

[Ripley]

http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/32562/unknown-spheres-found-dropping-onto-northern-vietnam

Three unidentified metal orbs were discovered in three provinces in northern Vietnam on Saturday, while a military official said that the spheres might be parts of a flying object
...
The mysterious sphere, about 50kg in weight, which has Russian letters on its surface, was initially identified as a device for meteorological research
...
Several other people associated the strange ball with the fuel tank of jet engines or space equipment.
...
The orbs could possibly be the compressed air tanks of a rocket or an aircraft, Phan Van Tu, former head of the High-Tech Division under the Ministry of National Defense was quoted by local media as saying...

 

[Andy44]

LOL it's probably harmless, but if I find metal objects from the sky with Russian letters on them I'm keeping a healthy distance until the guys with the Giger counters check it out.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

So, what got launched from Russia Saturday?

 

[Andy44]

So, what got launched from Russia Saturday?

Stuff from old launch vehicle stages falls out of the sky more often than you think, some of it is decades old and most of it falls into water.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

So, what got launched from Russia Saturday?

Uh...stuff...

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

These things apparently came from this launch: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=36467

More precisely, they are parts of the 2nd stage of the Zenit rocket.

 

[jedidia]

50 kg is damn heavy... these things have some serious damage potential. :blink:

 

[Urwumpe]

50 kg is damn heavy... these things have some serious damage potential. :blink:

Depends on the country that manufactured it. As you can see in the picture, it buried itself pretty deep into the soil, so it was pretty dense.

A European 769l tank weights 31 kg and has about 1.1 m diameter.

http://www.space-propulsion.com/brochures/propellant-tanks/769lt-mon-mmh-tank-ost-23-0.pdf

(If you need more data about other components: http://www.space-propulsion.com/brochures/index.html )

 

[Soheil_Esy]

http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/32562/unknown-spheres-found-dropping-onto-northern-vietnam

Wrong section and Repost: Roscosmos News: Thai blogger spots Zenit 3SLBF rocket entering atmosphere

 

[Nikogori]