Experts Are Baffled Where the 23-Ton of Space Debris Will Crash Upon Reentry to Earth

No one knows where a 23-ton chunk of rocket will crash onto the Earth. On Friday, a massive piece of space debris launched by a Chinese rocket is expected to crash down to Earth.

Why Billion-Dollar Space Debris Endangers Your Signal Reception

(Photo : NASA)

Rocket Debris

The core stage booster from China's Long March 5B rocket, which on October 31 delivered the third and last component of China's Tiangong space station, weighs 23 tons.

Jettisoned rocket fragments often reenter the atmosphere at a specific point, smashing into preset areas of the ocean. However, since this portion of Long March 5B is doing an uncontrolled reentry, it may crash almost anywhere.

Because the first stage core of these CZ-5B rockets reache orbit, its reentry point cannot be controlled, according to Ralph Cooney, an advanced materials professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who spoke to Newsweek. "Uncontrolled entry means there are no measures in place to ensure the remnants of this large debris object lands in an unpopulated zone," he said.

"In the specific case of the Long March 5B core stage, even though some spare propellant was probably left in the tanks-to be used as a margin for contingencies during the launch phase-it cannot be used any longer because the stage rocket motors cannot be restarted in space. They can only be started once at the launch pad," researchers Luciano Anselmo and Carmen Pardini said to Newsweek.

Also Read: Satellite Avoids Collision with Debris Scrambled by Space Weather

Reentering Earth

According to researchers Luciano Anselmo and Carmen Pardini at the Space Flight Dynamics Laboratory in Pisa, Italy, "In the specific case of the Long March 5B core stage, even though some spare propellant was probably left in the tanks-to be used as a margin for contingencies during the launch phase-it can no longer be used because the stage rocket motors cannot be restarted in space. They can only be started once at the launch pad.

Space debris that enters the Earth's atmosphere quickly experiences intense acceleration and extremely high temperatures. Smaller fragments of the debris may break off and fall to the ground, while others may burn up due to the heat.

However, only a tiny portion of this debris will be burnt due to its vast size.

According to Anselmo and Pardini, "This object is extraordinarily enormous and heavy, weighing more than 20 tons; thus, it cannot be annihilated by the violent reentry into the atmosphere." Larger structural components, tiny tanks, and high-temperature-resistant parts of the 3-ton rocket motor block may withstand the reentry conditions and land safely.

We do not know the manufacturing specifics of the stage, but a surviving debris mass between 2 and 5 tons may be predicted. This previously happened for this stage in Ivory Coast [in 2020] and Borneo in July of this year.

According to Cooney, depending on the makeup of the parts and particularly the amount of the two crucial light metals (aluminum and titanium) present, between 20 and 40% of the rocket is likely to survive the fall and hit the Earth's surface.

Should We Be Scared?

There is an extremely slim probability that the debris may strike a populated location. According to NASA, the likelihood of getting hit by space debris is around 1 in 3,200.