A large metal ring and sphere that villagers in rural western Indialink said fell from the sky over the weekendcould be from a Chinese rocket launched into spacelink last year, officials told local media.
The metal ring — reportedly two to three metres (6.5-10 feet) in diameterand weighing over 40 kilogrammes (90 pounds) — was discovered in a villagefield in Maharashtra state late on Saturday, district collector AjayGulhane told the Press Trust of India link.
“We were preparing a community feast, when the sky blazed with the red discwhich fell with a bang on an open plot in the village,” an unnamed woman inMaharashtra’s Chandrapur district told The Times of Indialink.
“People ran to their home fearing (an) explosion and remained inside fornearly half an hour.”
Another object — a large, metal ball around half a metre (1.5 feet) indiameter — fell in another village in the district, Gulhane told PTI.
“It has been collected for examination. We had sent (junior officials) toevery village in the district to find if more parts of objects, if any, arelying scattered.”
There were no reports of injuries or structural damage.
An Indian Space link Research Organisation(ISRO) official told the Times that the timing of the objects’ arrival wasthe “closest match” to the re-entry times on Saturday for debrislink a Chinese rocket launched inFebruary 2021.
Read Top Stories
“When rocket bodies survive atmospheric re-entry, the rocket parts such asnozzles, rings and tanks can impact on Earth,” another ISRO official toldthe newspaper.
Space-watcher Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center forAstrophysics tweeted that the ring was consistent with a piece of China’sLong March 3B rocket.
Objects generate immense amounts of heat and friction when they enter theatmosphere, which can cause them to burn up and disintegrate, but largerones may not be destroyed entirely.
Their wreckage can land on the surface of the planet and may cause damageand casualties, though that risk is low.
In 2020, debris link from another ChineseLong March rocket fell on villages in the Ivory Coast, causing structuraldamage but no injuries or deaths. -APP/AFP
