Astronaut snaps embarrassing photo of space junk while aboard ISS

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have to endure many challenges during their stay aboard the floating laboratory, and one of those challenges is making sure their possessions aren't lost to the void of space.

Unfortunately, that is what astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara experienced on November 2, 2023, as a tool bag worth approximately $100,000 escaped from their clutches during a spacewalk. The tool bag is now being tracked from Earth's surface as it orbits the planet, which can be seen in the below video taken from Añasco, Puerto Rico, on November 11, 2023. Notably, the tool bag appears to be changing in brightness, which suggests that it's tumbling as it orbits the planet.

Furthermore, Crew-7 was transported back to Earth's surface by SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, and recently sat down for their first post-flight press conference where Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut, Satoshi Furakawa, explained he was embarrassed when he discovered he accidently captured the tool bag when he was attempting to take a photograph of Mt. Fuji.

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"We were in Node 1, I think, having lunch or dinner, and Satoshi had been out in the Cupola taking pictures," the mission's commander, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, recounted. "He comes in and he's like, 'Well, you know, I'm very, very, very sorry. But you know, I took this picture.' And we were all thinking, 'What's going on?'"

"He had managed to take a picture of the tool bag as it was transiting Mount Fuji," Mogensen continued. "He had been trying to take a picture of Mount Fuji and ended up with a picture of the tool bag."