A piece of Chinese rocket fell to Earth again : Scientists are concerned about a dangerous trend
(ORDO NEWS) — A giant piece of a Chinese Long March 2D rocket appears to have crashed into the planet and is stuck in the ground in the northwestern province of Gansu.
Images of the wreckage have circulated on the Chinese social network Weibo.
In the photo you can see a massive metal structure in the form of a pipe, which is vertically stuck in freshly cultivated soil and sticks out 7-9 meters above the surface.
The piece is thought to have belonged to a rocket that China launched on Saturday to put satellites into orbit. Officials have not yet expressed their opinion on this matter.
What is known
Long March rockets and boosters were not designed to be reusable, which means they often end their lives in an uncontrolled descent into the Earth‘s atmosphere.
Western officials have long criticized the practice, saying it is not only environmentally unfriendly compared to reusable rocket parts, but also potentially dangerous to anyone living within the drop zones.
Such situations, which China constantly allows, are very worrying for scientists.
- At the beginning of the year, debris from a Long March 5B rocket fell into the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
- In May 2020, debris from another Chinese missile fell and damaged facilities in the Ivory Coast.
- Last year, another piece of debris landed in the Indian Ocean off the Maldives. Back then, NASA administrator Bill Nelson accused China of “failing to meet responsible standards for its space debris.”
It should be noted that this morning, November 1, the Long March-5V carrier rocket launched a new module of the future Chinese space station into orbit. It is expected that this rocket will fall on the planet later.
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