www.abc.net.au/news

===================

Last Update: Wednesday, February 11, 2004. 8:42am (AEDT)

Crew members on the International Space Station have spotted an
unidentified floating object.

Mystery object baffles space station crew
US and Russian space officials say the crew on board the International
Space Station has reported an unidentified object outside the orbiting
craft.

A NASA representative in Russia says American astronaut Michael Foale
and his Russian colleague, Alexander Kaleri, last week observed what
they described as a 20 centimetre long strip of soft material which
was floating in space.

www.abc.net.au/news

===================

Last Update: Wednesday, February 11, 2004. 8:42am (AEDT)

Crew members on the International Space Station have spotted an
unidentified floating object.

Mystery object baffles space station crew
US and Russian space officials say the crew on board the International
Space Station has reported an unidentified object outside the orbiting
craft.

A NASA representative in Russia says American astronaut Michael Foale
and his Russian colleague, Alexander Kaleri, last week observed what
they described as a 20 centimetre long strip of soft material which
was floating in space.

The representative says it is still unclear what the object was.

He says US and Russian experts are studying photos sent by the crew to
determine its origin but insist it posed no danger to the station.

Russian experts say it could have been a piece of the station's
insulation, or a strip used to attach some technical equipment to the
outside of the station.

"It is possible that we will never manage to find out what it was," a
spokeman for Russian mission control outside Moscow, Valery Lyndin,
told Interfax.

According to Mr Lyndin, there was a similar incident on the
now-scrapped Russian space station Mir.

The cosmonauts saw a "shining object" which they filmed but experts
who studied these images were "unable to establish what the object
was", he said.