A large metal ring suspected to be space debris crashed into a village in southern Kenya on Monday, the Kenya Space Agency said.
A Kenya Space Agency The Saudi official said the partially burned metal object was about 2.5 meters in diameter, weighed about 500 kilograms, and was likely shrapnel from a missile.
“Such objects are typically designed to burn up upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over uninhabited areas, such as oceans,” the space agency shared in a New Year’s Day statement to X, calling the incident an “isolated incident.” issue.”
Residents of Mukoko village in Makueni County, southeast of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. She described their shock When the debris lands.
“I was grazing my cow and I heard a loud bang,” Joseph Mutua, a local resident, told Kenya’s NTV news channel. Translated from the New York Times. “I looked around; I couldn’t see any smoke in the clouds. I went to the side of the road to check if there was any car accident, but there was no collision.
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Mutua continued: “If the object had fallen on a house, it would have been catastrophic.” “We didn’t know if it was a bomb or something else and it fell here.”
Julius Rotich, Mboni Sub County Police Commander, told Kenya Broadcasting Corporation The object was still hot When officers arrived Monday, residents were kept out of the area until they cooled down.
Space debris and junk are a growing problem, and the European Space Agency estimated their presence last year More than 13,000 tons of material in low Earth orbit – About a third of it has been identified as space junk.
The agency estimates that with approximately 110 new launches each year, in addition to at least 10 existing satellites and other objects breaking up in space annually, the amount of space debris is expected to increase.
Last year, when a piece of orbital junk was discovered in rural Saskatchewan, the Canadian Space Agency told Global News it was taking the issue of space debris “very seriously” and working to ensure it did not pose any “significant risks” to Earth. .
Barry Sawchuk found a giant piece of suspected space debris, shown in this photo provided by Sawchuk, in the field of his farm near Ituna, Sask., on February 28, 2024.
Barry Sawchuk/Bulletin/The Canadian Press
“As space traffic increases, space debris is becoming an increasing problem, and we are all working very closely with national and international partners to find solutions to manage it,” Stephanie Durand, CSA’s vice president of space program policy, said at the conference. time.
According to Saudi Arabia, the debris that fell in Kenya is subject to investigation under international space law.
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