That Chunk of Sputnik

After a series of bright, meteorlike objects had shone in Middle Western skies, and cops picked up a 20-lb. piece of hot steel on a quiet Wisconsin street, word got out that a Soviet Sputnik had broken up above the U.S. The steel was rushed to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge. Mass., where a 6-lb. piece was cut off. The rest went to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico to be tested for radioactivity. Last week, skeptics, who had all along suspected a hoax, got an official disappointment: the steel really came from a Sputnik.

First report was from Los Alamos. Radiation Expert Dr. Ernest C. Anderson reported that the object has the same sort of radioactivity that is shown by natural iron meteorites. Cosmic rays from distant space have turned some of its iron atoms to unstable manganese 54, which gives off radiation while it is decaying to stable chromium 54. This is good proof that the object was part of a spacecraft that had orbited for a long time above the atmosphere, which stops most cosmic rays. The piece that fell on Manitowoc, Wis., probably came from the breakup of Sputnik IV, the five-ton Russian satellite that was launched on May 15, 1960 and disintegrated Sept. 5, 1962.

No one was sure what part of the Sput nik the chunk of steel came from. It is roughly lens-shaped, with one face smooth and the other covered with very rough steel that looks as if it had melted and then hardened again. This could have happened if the chunk moved white-hot through the atmosphere with the smooth face forward, allowing molten steel to flow to the cooler rear side and solidify there.

Los Alamos experts do not want anyone to get the idea that metal which has been exposed to space is dangerously radioactive. The Sputnik chunk, they say is less radioactive than many kinds of granite and wholly harmless. Future satellite frag ments can be safely gathered and sent to the proper authorities for analysis.

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