On Friday, November 4, a large chunk of Chinese space debris is anticipated to return to Earth, but no one is certain of its exact location or arrival time, according to a report by Space.com.
(Photo : CNS/AFP via Getty Images)
A Long March 5B rocket, which is expected to launch China's Mengtian science module to Tiangong space station, is seen before its planned launch from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan Province on October 31, 2022. -
Long March 5B Rocket
The 23-ton (21 metric tons) core stage of a Long March 5B rocket, which was launched on Monday, Oct. 31, after deploying the third and last module for China's Tiangong space station, is the expected space junk to crash into our planet.
Since then, atmospheric drag has been lowering the rocket body. The Long March 5B should come down on Friday morning based on the most recent observations and simulations. However, this prediction is still open to errors, as per Space.com.
According to the Aerospace Corporation, an atmospheric reentry is expected on Friday around 7:20 AM EDT (1120 PM GMT).
This large window puts almost all of Central America, most of Africa, a portion of southeastern Australia, some of North America, and other places at risk of facing the falling space junk.
Long March 5B core stages uncontrollably fell back to Earth on each of the vehicle's previous three launches, most recently in July when the rocket transported the Wentian module up to Tiangong.
Other orbital rockets are built with their first stages discarded shortly after launch into the sea or over uninhabited terrain, this is the case with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, which both comes down in one piece for future reuse.
The Long March 5B core stage, however, is unable to direct itself down once it has reached orbit and it only relies on the atmospheric drag to do the heavy work.
When the rocket body crashes to the ground on Friday, most of it will burn up in the stratosphere, but some of the more durable bits will make it all the way to the ground, potentially endangering people and properties near the reentry route.
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Space Junk Problem
According to NASA, there are around 25,000 pieces larger than 10 cm in orbit and over 500,000 pieces of space junk between 1 cm and 10 cm in diameter. These debris pieces can travel across orbit at speeds of up to 33,000 mph, which is faster than a bullet.
The U.S. Global Surveillance Network is now keeping an eye on 30,000 objects larger than 4 inches (10 cm) in Earth orbit. Furthermore, according to the European Space Agency, one million particles are currently circling the globe at a speed of 0.4 inches (1 cm).
Space debris returning to Earth over the next ten years will affect humans slightly but significantly, according to research. This is more likely to occur at southern latitudes than northern ones.
The study found that the chances of a rocket body crashing are nearly three times higher at the latitudes of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jakarta, Indonesia, or Lagos, Nigeria than in New York, Moscow, and Beijing.
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Written by Jace Dela Cruz
