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A monolithic part of infinite dust recently blast into a village in Kenya . The 1,100 - pound ( 500 kilograms ) doughnut of metal likely came from a rocket , though its accurate origins are still unknown , Kenyan officials say .
Low - earth orbit is getting progressively congest . There are currently more than170 million pieces of debriswider than 0.004 inches ( 1 millimetre ) from rockets , quad shuttle , defunct satellites and other space cognitive process orb our major planet . Some of thatspace junksimply burns up in Earth ’s atmosphere . But the pieces that do n’t are beginning to pose problems .
A massive piece of space junk that fell from the skies onto a Kenyan village was likely a separation ring from a rocket.
On Monday ( Dec. 30 ) , a small Kenyan village learned this the grueling way when the half - ton metal ring break up into a thicket , startling locals . " I was looking after my cow and I heard a loud bang , " Joseph Mutua , a resident of Mukuku village , which lie southeast of the capital Nairobi , told Kenyan news place NTV . " I could not see any smoke in the clouds . I went by the roadside to see if there was any car accident , but there was n’t any collision . "
At first , residents were worried that their village was under blast ; the landing place go like a bomb exploding . But instead , they find oneself an 8 - foot - wide ( 2.5 meters ) gang - corresponding object that had completely flattened the trees and bushes it precipitate on . The Kenya Space Agency ( KSA ) soon identified it as a separation ring from a rocket . They have not yet determined its origin .
While KSA assured people that the ring does not pose any further menace , some local anaesthetic are still worried . Had the ring landed on a building or domicile " it would have been catastrophic , " Mutua articulate . Others require to see the possessor of the land where the debris barge in compensated for the disturbance , theNew York Times reported .
— A Taiwanese ballistic capsule burned up over Los Angeles . Earthquake sensors mapped its route through the atmosphere .
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— Boeing - made planet shatters in orbit , and nobody knows why
Incidents like this , while still rarified , are becoming more common . In May 2024 , a piece of dust from aSpaceXcraftstruck a military man ’s roofin Franklin , North Carolina . A month earlier , two large , scorch piece of distance junk were describe on a farm in Saskatchewan , Canada . And in March 2024 , a lump of metallic element from the International Space Station ( ISS)crashed through a family ’s homein Naples , Florida . Space detritus is even posing athreat to astronauts on the International Space Station , which last year had to maneuver out of the agency of debris .
As commercial and governmental place launches continue to ramp up , experts warnthat the distance debris job will only get uncollectible . Globally , there are already C of space launchesplanned for 2025 — bestow more junk to the proverbial pile .
