On November 1, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara decided to venture out of the ISS and embark on a spacewalk to work on a solar array.
Everything was going according to plan, until the astronauts lost their grip on a tool bag. That tool bag was then tracked just two weeks later according to an image taken by the Virtual Telescope Project, which is located in Italy.
"The image above comes from a single 2-second exposure," project founder Gianluca Masi wrote in a statement, alongside the image. "The object looks like a sharp dot of light in the center, as the telescope tracked it, so stars left long trails on the background."
The loose tool bag was spotted as it was zooming through Earth’s obit at speeds reaching 17,500 miles per hour, and the telescope had to work quickly just to keep it in its sight. In the image, the tool bag looks like a far away star in the sky.
Luckily, the bag will not be reunited with anyone back at ISS, according to a statement released by NASA.
“Mission Control analyzed the bag’s trajectory and determined that risk of recontacting the station is low and that the onboard crew and space station are safe with no action required,” NASA said in a statement after the spacewalk ended on November 1.
A video of the bag’s escape was taken with a camera that had been mounted on Moghbeli’s helmet at the time. Luckily, the tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk, according to NASA.
Unlike other pieces of space junk, the tool bag will eventually burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, putting an official end to its escape plan.