A toxic substance, orignally reported to be ammonia, has leaked into the U.S.-made section of the International Space Station, according to Russian media reports. The astronauts — three Russians, two Americans, and one Italian — are safe and have taken refuge in the Russian section of the space station. "The safety of the crew has been secured by prompt joint action by the U.S. and Russian crewmembers, as well as by mission control staff in Moscow and Houston," Maksim Matyushin, the head of the Russian Mission Control Center, said in a statement to RT. Russian and U.S. space officials are working on a plan to decontaminate the isolated section of the ISS.
UPDATE: On Twitter, NASA says that the crew evacuated due to "safety procedures," and suggested that a "either a faulty sensor or computer relay" may have been behind the coolant leak alarm. --Peter Weber
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Helsinki's year of zero road fatalitiesUnder the Radar Finland's 'Vision Zero' safety strategy 'shifts responsibility for crashes from road users to the designers of the road system'
-
Critics' choice: Outstanding new Japanese restaurantsFeature An all-women sushi team, a 15-seat listening bar, and more
-
Why do Dana White and Donald Trump keep pushing for a White House UFC match?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The president and the sports mogul each have their own reasons for wanting a White House spectacle
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
Answers to how life on Earth began could be stuck on MarsUnder the Radar Donald Trump plans to scrap Nasa's Mars Sample Return mission – stranding test tubes on the Red Planet and ceding potentially valuable information to China
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
The treasure trove of platinum on the moonUnder the radar This kind of bounty could lead to commercial exploitation
-
Why Elon Musk's satellites are 'dropping like flies'Under The Radar Fierce solar activity destroying Starlink satellites
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
