Toolbags in Space

[Ben]

This is fascinating to me, and I'm going to try and find it.

https://www.space.com/astronauts-international-space-station-tool-bag-visible

Apparently a couple of astronauts on EVA dropped a toolbag. Two women. 

Anyways, the toolbag is apparently nearly as bright as Uranus    and can be viewed with binos. I was surprised that something so small would be so bright. It must have some kind of reflective material.

[HankB]

I remember when it happened. The ISS made a pass almost directly overhead at the time, so I went out to look at it with my binoculars, and damn if I didn't see the tool bag!

It was too dim for my naked eye to see, but it was unquestionably there in the same field of view of my 7x50 binoculars as the ISS, and preceding it in orbit. From the linked article, it sounds like it's drifted further away now.

[Ben]

I remember when it happened.

Well, I'm glad to see you don't have Alzheimer's, since it only happened a few days ago. 

[WLJ]

That was our last 10mm socket!
Houston, we have a problem

[HankB]

Well, I'm glad to see you don't have Alzheimer's, since it only happened a few days ago. 

Should have been clearer, it was a previous occurrence -

https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-lost-items-in-space-dropped-bag-2023-11?op=1

A NASA astronaut lost a bag worth $100,000 in 2008 while trying to clean up a leak

While conducting repairs outside the ISS on November 18, 2008, NASA astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper accidentally let her tool bag slip — and it was worth $100,000, The Register reported.

A grease gun inside the 30-pound bag had started to leak, and while Stefanyshyn-Piper was attempting to clean up the mess, the bag drifted out of her grasp, Space.com reported.

Stefanyshyn-Piper said in an interview after the incident that she considered jumping and grabbing the bag, according to Space.com.

"Then I realized that it would just make everything worse, and then we'd have two floating objects, one of which would be me," she added. "So the best thing to do was just to let it go."

[WLJ]

Should have been clearer, it was a previous occurrence -

https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-lost-items-in-space-dropped-bag-2023-11?op=1

Another woman, I'm seeing a pattern here 

[lee n. field]

Uranus is an "ice giant"?

[WLJ]

Uranus is an "ice giant"?

They're been referring to both Uranus and Neptune as Ice Giants for some time now once they got a better idea of their make up

From NASA

Uranus is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Neptune). Most (80% or more) of the planet's mass is made up of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane, and ammonia – above a small rocky core. Near the core, it heats up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4,982 degrees Celsius).

https://science.nasa.gov/uranus/facts/

[Perd Hapley]

These astronautesses clearly thought that, since the crime rate is so low in space, they could disregard that old advice about carrying their bags with the strap on their opposite shoulder.