A large metal ring suspected to be space debris crashed Monday in a village in southern Kenya, the country's space agency said.
TO Kenya Space Agency (KSA) said the partially burned metal object measures about 2.5 meters in diameter, weighs about 500 kilograms and is probably a fragment of a rocket.
“These objects are typically designed to burn upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere or to fall into unoccupied areas, such as the oceans,” the space agency shared in a statement to X on New Year's Day, describing the incident as “an incident isolated”. case.”
Residents of Mukuku village in Makueni county, southeast of Kenya's capital Nairobi, described his shock in the forced landing of the debris.
“I was tending my cow and I heard a loud bang,” Joseph Mutua, a local resident, told Kenya's NTV news channel, according to a New York Times translation. “I looked around; I couldn't see smoke in the clouds. “I went to the side of the road to check if there was any car accident, but there was no collision.”
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“If the object fell on a farm, it would have been catastrophic,” Mutua continued. “We didn't know if it was a bomb or whatever and it fell here.”
Julius Rotich, Mbooni sub-county police commander, told the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation that The object was still hot. when officers arrived Monday, and that residents were kept away from the area until it cooled down.
Space debris and space debris are a growing problem, and last year the European Space Agency estimated that there were More than 13,000 tons of material in low Earth orbit. – about a third of them were identified as space junk.
The agency estimates that with approximately 110 new launches each year, in addition to at least 10 existing satellites and other objects disintegrating in space each year, the amount of space debris will increase.
Last year, when a piece of orbital debris was discovered in rural Saskatchewan, the Canadian Space Agency told Global News it takes the issue of space debris “very seriously” and is working to ensure it does not represent any “major risk” to Earth. .
Barry Sawchuk found a giant piece of suspected space debris, as shown in this image provided by Sawchuk, in the field of his farm near Ituna, Sask., on Feb. 28, 2024.
Barry Sawchuk / Brochure / Canadian Press
“With the increase in space traffic, space debris is a growing problem and we are all working very closely with national and international partners to find solutions to manage it,” said Stéphanie Durand, CSA vice president of space program policy, in the conference. time.
According to the KSA, the debris that fell in Kenya is being investigated under international space law.
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