A few days ago, an astrophysicist from Harvard Smithsonian Center warned of the imminent return of a Chinese rocket to Earth. At that time they said that it was not known where and when it Long March 5Bbut it probably won’t take long. Now we have a very likely date. Maybe it will Sunday, July 31. What we don’t know yet is the locations. There is a rough idea, but the strip of land you can land on is huge.
This story seems familiar to us, because this is not the first time this has happened. The fall of these pieces of space debris to Earth is a normal phenomenon. sometimes you can do controlled landingsbut they are expensive, so finally they are usually left free in spaceuntil they leave orbit and return to our planet. This can happen to both Chinese rockets and rockets from other countries, but the truth is that the Asian country’s great space activity means that we’ve had quite a few encounters with its launchers lately.
In 2020, for example, a Chinese rocket fell directly on a village in Ivory Coastdamaging several buildings in the process. Fortunately, there were no human injuries, only material ones. Later, in 2021, an event similar to what we expect now occurred. It was known when he would fall, but not where. Finally he was in the ocean next to the Maldives, so there was not even material damage. And what will happen this time? Unfortunately, this is something we cannot know.
Unclear fate of another Chinese missile
Normally, when a piece of space debris returns to Earth, it breaks up into very small fragments as it traverses the atmosphere. The problem is that this Chinese rocket is huge. It is 53.6 meters long and weighs 23 tons., so no matter how much it decomposes, it is expected that there will be too large pieces. In fact, the general rule is that 20-40% of the mass of a large object reach the ground.
So the most fortunate future will be where debris falls into the ocean, like last year. The problem is that, according to the Aerospace Corporation, 88% of the world’s population lives on the strip of land where a rocket can land. This strip corresponds to the entire map covered yellow and blue lines.
It was recently calculated that the probability of a piece of space debris hitting a person in a decade will reach 10%. Knowing this, those 88% are pretty worrisome.
For all this Aerospace Corporation will monitor the return of a Chinese rocket to Earth and will update the possible impact site as it approaches us. Thus, perhaps the inhabitants of the affected area could be warned if necessary.
But for now, we’ll have to wait. I hope he goes to the ocean again, like last year. If not, let’s hope not. nothing to be sorry about.
Source: Hiper Textual
