Space Fridge Comes Crashing to Earth

Fridges can be a nuisance to get rid of once they have broken down, especially if you are 200miles above the Earth.

Astronaut Clay Anderson resorted to flinging a hefty 1400lb ammonia tank off the International Space Station last year, because there was no room left on the shuttle to fly it back to the planet.

The stinky space junk was expected to crash somewhere on Earth last night, with pieces as heavy as 15lb surviving the burn up through the planet's atmosphere.

However NASA's Mike Suffredini has reassured anyone worried about the ammonia tank crashing into their back garden.

'This has got a very low likelihood that anybody will be impacted by it,' he said.

'But still, it is a large object and we just need to be cautious.'

NASA normally frowns on littering in space. There are currently estimated to be one million bits of space junk in orbit including broken spacecraft pieces, nuts and frozen astronaut waste.

But in July 2007 the agency found no better option than to discard the defunct coolant processor overboard.