Huge Chinese Rocket Will Crash Back to Earth in Hours
Huge Chinese Rocket Will Crash Back to Earth in Hours
A Chinese rocket that was blasted off a building block for a space station is set to make an uncontrolled re-entry back to Earth...
It's expected to land anytime in the next few hours - but strangely, people still have no real idea where the rocket will land.
And its debris could crash into any inhabited area across the globe, alarming new reports are claiming.
This will be one of the largest uncontrolled landings of a spacecraft ever made, according to SpaceNews.
Of course, people have been left feeling a little uneasy by the announcement...
Is anyone else a tiny bit concerned about the 100ft Chinese rocket falling back to earth uncontrollably?!? 😲 It'll be a huge hit. Space force are tracking it. And bits will break up. But it'll still be a huge crash. #ChineseRocket
— Stephen Pugh (@SCFC_Pughy34) May 1, 2021
They don’t care about where it lands and, potentially, the damage and loves it could cost. 🤦🏻♂️
— Eddie (@EddieLee42) May 4, 2021
Maybe @elonmusk can help us find out - 🙏🙏🙏
— CatarinaFranco (@Catarin48316069) May 4, 2021
well the fact that i just found out a Chinese rocket ship launcher that weights about 21 metric tons is falling at a terrifying speed towards the earth and could crash into - nay CRUSH - anything, has ruined my day. you are also welcome. btw it is orbiting the earth every 90 mins
— tafadzwa 🇿🇼🇿🇼 (@omfgitstaffie) May 2, 2021
Did y’all know a Chinese rocket launcher accidentally went into orbit with the rocket and is set to uncontrollably plummet back into earth any day now?
— noodles just noodles (@ChurchDalton) May 1, 2021
Walking around with a permanent hard hat for the foreseeable
— Hannah (@AbsolutelyHan) May 3, 2021
Hope everyone is safe 🙏
— Givepeaceachance (@Givepeaceacha16) May 3, 2021
Anyone else just a lil bit anxious about the Chinese rocket falling back to earth or????
— kirstyrose (@_xkirstrose) May 4, 2021
Why is nobody talking about the falling Chinese rocket that nobody knows where its going to land
— Brandon (@ITZxBRAND0N) May 3, 2021
The rocket, known as Long March 5B Y2, lifted off on Thursday, April 29th, from China's southern Hainan island, carrying the main module for China's first permanent space station.
However, while the module separated from the launcher to continue its journey as planned, the launch vehicle's core section also reached orbit and, consequently, is now slowly and unpredictably heading back to Earth.
On Tuesday, the twenty-one tonne Long March 5B was recorded in orbit traveling at around 28,000 kilometres per hour...
This morning's data on the altitude-versus-time of the Tianhe / CZ-5B objects. The core stage orbit continues to slowly decay as expected. pic.twitter.com/E8EPJ9yzRu
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) May 4, 2021
Or 7 kilometres per second.
Long March 5B was initially expected to make a controlled landing in a specific part of the ocean...
But now, it will be making an uncontrolled landing somewhere across the globe, and potentially in an inhabited area.
Spaceflight observer and astrophysicist at Harvard University, Jonathan McDowell, told SpaceNews that it was "unacceptable" to let the core section of the launcher re-enter uncontrolled.
"Since 1990 nothing over 10 tons has been deliberately left in orbit to re-enter uncontrolled," he said.
McDowell later tweeted that "this one is bigger than anything recent..."
To summarize: this one is bigger than anything recent, but not as big as Skylab and its ilk back in the day.
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) May 3, 2021
Though not as big as previous uncontrolled landings, such as the 1979 reentry of NASA's seventy-six-ton Skylab, whose uncontrolled reentry scattered debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.
Any little comfort helps, right?
Anyway, calculations by Russian experts have since indicated a reentry window of 9:00 p.m. May 7th to 4:00 p.m. May 9th Eastern, with more exact predictions to follow in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense Spokesperson, Mike Howard, said in a statement:
"The U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth's atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry, which is expected around May 8th."
"Until then, the 18th Space Control Squadron will be offering daily updates to the rocket body's location on www.space-track.org beginning May 4th."
"We will provide additional information as it becomes available," the statement concluded.
But there is still one question burning upon the minds of terrified stargazers all over the world...
Where exactly could Long March 5B make its potentially deadly reentry?
Well, the Long March 5B core stage's orbital inclination of 41.5 degrees means the rocket body passes a little farther north than New York, Madrid, and Beijing, and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand.
Subsequently, the rocket could make its reentry at any point within this area.
But fear not!
It remains most likely that any debris which survives the intense heat of re-entry will fall into the larger oceans - which account for around seventy percent of the Earth - or areas where there are no people living.
So don't expect to see a rocket land on your suburban doorstep anytime soon.
It's expected to land in the next few hours.
Me:
— Riki ➐ (@RikiBobbii) May 8, 2021
Trying to figure out if the line crosses my state. #ChineseRocket pic.twitter.com/xtdoJ8i7wm
The 23-ton (21 metric tons) core stage likely will fall into an uninhabited area, given that 70% of Earth's surface is covered by ocean - but it isn't certain.
So keep your eyes peeled folks!
Yep. Definitely looks like it will hit Earth. #ChineseRocket pic.twitter.com/MOvDbD7g4c
— Brandon Powers (@BrandonBPowers) May 8, 2021
And let's hope that it lands somewhere safe.
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