A 20-ton metal cylinder is crashing uncontrollably towards Earth. And it almost certainly won’t completely disintegrate upon contact with the atmosphere. This is the second stage of the Chinese “Long March 5B” rocket, launched on April 29 to send the first module of the new Beijing space station into space, italy24news reports.
Now the booster, separated from the main module, is slowly decaying from its orbit and has become a potentially dangerous ‘space waste’.
On April 29, China launched the first module of its space station, now a shower of debris is feared
The Chinese authorities, of course, have assured that the risk of damage to Earth “is extremely low” and that any debris should still end up in the ocean: “Most of the components will be destroyed by ablation during re-entry into the atmosphere, only a very small portion could fall on Earth, potentially on areas far from human activities or in the ocean,” explained a spokesman for the Beijing Foreign Minister. In reality, it is quite difficult to make reliable predictions, both on the consequences of the impact with the atmosphere, and on the exact moment in which this impact will occur.
