Space junk 'may have hit Shuttle'

A small meteorite or piece of man-made space junk may have struck the Columbia shuttle while it was still in orbit causing it to crash on its return to earth, Nasa said today.

Space junk 'may have hit Shuttle'

A small meteorite or piece of man-made space junk may have struck the Columbia shuttle while it was still in orbit causing it to crash on its return to earth, Nasa said today.

Even a tiny scrap of debris grazing the shuttle could have damaged thermal tiles just enough to start a chain reaction once it started re-entering the atmosphere, said Milt Heflin, the space agency’s flight director.

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