A 2.5-meter jagged ring fell on Kenya from space

A huge piece of space debris fell on the territory of a Kenyan village a few days ago. The 500kg metal ring is likely part of some kind of launch vehicle, although its exact origin is still unclear, according to local officials.

Image Source: KSA

Every year, the low Earth orbit of the Earth becomes more and more congested. Currently, there are more than 170 million pieces of debris larger than 1 mm in orbit around our planet, which are parts of launch vehicles, spacecraft, satellites and other objects. Some of this debris burns up when it enters the atmosphere. However, this does not always happen, which is becoming an increasingly noticeable problem.

Residents of a small Kenyan village were convinced of this on December 30, when a metal ring weighing 500 kg fell on their settlement. “I was looking after my cow when I heard a loud bang. I didn’t see any smoke in the sky. I walked along the side of the road to check if there had been a traffic accident, but I didn’t see anything like that,” Joseph Mutua, a resident of Mukuku village, southeast of the capital Nairobi, said about the incident.

At first, the villagers were worried about what happened because they thought there was a bomb explosion. However, when examining the surrounding area, they found a ring-shaped object with a diameter of 2.5 m, which leveled the trees and bushes on which it fell. Representatives of the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) identified this object as a rocket separation ring, but it is not yet known what part of the launch vehicle it was.

The KSA assured people that the metal ring does not pose a danger to local residents. However, they are still concerned about what happened, since if such an object fell on a residential building, a disaster would occur. There are also opinions that the owners of the land on which the metal ring fell should receive compensation.

Such incidents are rare, but their frequency may increase over time. Last May, debris from a SpaceX ship fell onto the roof of a residential building in Franklin, North Carolina. A month earlier, two large charred pieces of space debris were discovered on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada. In March of that year, a piece of metal from the ISS crashed into a house in Naples, Florida. Space debris also poses a threat to astronauts on the ISS. To avoid collisions with debris, the station’s orbit must be regularly adjusted.