Stuff coming back from space that we sent up.

[jmorgan]

Been following this fella on twitter since the Chinese space station. Interesting what comes back, a lot more than I thought. Some of the comments are for nuclear cores ejected form various projects.
https://twitter.com/planet4589

https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/985402042373...

Then mentions something from released from the Agena stage, Ford Needles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford

I knew there was a lot of junk up there but the returning stuff is quite often.

[Eric Mc]

Low earth orbit has a fairly short life - often only a few days or weeks.

[Simpo Two]

Re 'nuclear cores', if radioactive material burns up on re-entry, is the radioactivity neutralised by the burning process or just dissipated into the atmosphere? My puny grasp of chemistry and physics can't resolve it...

[jmorgan]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954#Recover...

Doesn’t answer the question but the recovery section is interesting.