Suspected space junk crash lands on WA mine site

A flaming chunk of suspected space junk has crash landed in outback Western Australia.

Stunned workers at a Pilbara mine site found the mysterious item burning about 2pm (5pm AEDT) yesterday and alerted emergency services. 

Investigators confirmed the carbon fibre waste was not from a commercial aircraft.

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Police said it appeared to be a "composite-overwrapped pressure vessel or rocket tank, consistent with aerospace components".

"The object remains under investigation, though its characteristics are consistent with known space re-entry debris," police said, in a statement

"Further technical assessment will be undertaken by engineers from the Australian Space Agency to assist in identifying its nature and source."

Space agencies often drop debris into the atmosphere.

"It is on purpose that this bit of rocket body has landed back, but it could just be the way that it's been tumbling that this piece was able to survive," Perth Observatory's Matt Woods said.

The last time space junk landed in WA was just two years ago when an Indian rocket's tank crashed down in Green Head.

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Earlier this year, parts of a Mother's Day meteor scattered over the outback.

"[The] great thing about WA is we're the second-biggest state in the world so we've got a lot of land mass that this stuff can land on," Woods said.

NASA was famously fined for littering when its defunct space station - Skylab - disintegrated over Esperance. 

The Australian Space Agency is still investigating the source of yesterday's discovery.

It says there's no threat to public safety.

Only one person has been hit by falling space waste and it was only the size of a soft drink can.

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