IFL SCIENCE
On December 30, the people of Mukuku, a village in Kenya about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the capital Nairobi, found a massive piece of space debris. Luckily nobody was harmed when the 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) rocket piece came crashing down.
The piece is a metallic ring 2.5 meters (8 feet) across believed to come from a launch vehicle. On New Year’s Eve, members of the Kenya Space Agency traveled to the site to assess the object, confirming it was indeed space junk that did not burn in our atmosphere.
“Preliminary assessments indicate that the fallen object is a separation ring from a launch vehicle (rocket). Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans. This is an isolated case, which the Agency will investigate and address using the established framework under the International Space law,” the Kenya Space Agency said in a statement.
A lot of stuff that is sent into space and then comes back down will burn in the atmosphere. But not all of it. There has been a massive increase in space launches, mostly due to SpaceX’s regular launches of Starlink satellites. More material in orbit and more launches means a higher chance of stuff not burning up or falling near people…
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