A large metal ring and sphere that villagers in rural western India said fell from the sky over the weekend could be from a Chinese rocket launch into space last year, as per the officials told local media.
That metal ring is reportedly two to three metres (6.5-10 feet) in diameter and weighing over 40 kilograms (90 pounds) was discover in a village field in Maharashtra state late on Saturday, district collector Ajay Gulhane told the Press Trust of India.
An unname woman in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district Said :
“We were preparing a community feast, when the sky blazed with the red disc which fell with a bang on an open plot in the village,”.
“People ran to their home fearing (an) explosion and remain inside for nearly half an hour.”
Other object, a large, metal ball around half a metre (1.5 feet) in diameter, fell in another village in the district, Gulhane told PTI.
There were no reports of injuries or structural damage.
An Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official told that the timing of the objects’ arrival was the “closest match” to the re-entry times for debris from a Chinese rocket launch in February 2021.
ISRO official Said :
“When rocket bodies survive atmospheric re-entry, the rocket parts such as nozzles, rings and tanks can impact on Earth,”.
Space-watcher Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics tweeted that the ring was consistent with a piece of China’s Long March 3B rocket.
Objects generate immense amounts of heat and friction when they enter the atmosphere, which can cause them to burn up and disintegrate, but larger ones may not be destroy entirely.
Their wreckage can land on the surface of the planet and may cause damage and casualties, though that risk is low.
In 2020, debris from another Chinese Long March rocket fell on villages in the Ivory Coast, causing structural damage but no injuries or deaths.
