Shortly before New Year’s Eve, the residents of a small village southeast of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, bore witness to an unusual event. They saw a roughly 8-foot metallic ring weighing half a ton fall from the sky on Dec. 30. There were no injuries.
The object landed among dirt and vegetation and several curious residents approached to get a closer look. It was a mystery. Was it part of an airplane? Maybe a spacecraft? Local police secured the area until a team from the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) arrived and removed the debris.
Space Trash in Kenya
48 hours after arriving at the scene, KSA released a statement about its preliminary findings. The space agency said that the evidence appears to suggest that the mysterious object is a separation ring from a space launch vehicle. Notably, the agency didn’t specify which rocket the piece of space junk belonged to and said the incident was an “isolated case.”
According to the agency, these types of objects are designed to disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere or land in uninhabited areas, such as oceans. Given that this didn’t happen, authorities have decided to launch an investigation under the international space law framework.
Click on the photo to watch more footage of the object on X.
At the time of publication of this article, authorities still hadn’t associated the object found in the village of Mukuku to a specific rocket. Space trash can orbit our planet for many years before reentering the atmosphere, which means that the object isn’t necessarily related to recent launch.
Local outlet Nation Africa reported on Friday that the Kenyan government had presented India with demand for compensation over the fallen object. KSA, however, came out to refute the report.
"[The] claim for notification for compensation allegedly made by the Government of Kenya is false and should be ignored," the space agency said.
In a new statement, KSA explained that the investigation was still ongoing and that the debris aren't related to a mission from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
While we still don't know what rocket the metallic ring belonged to, what we do know is that space trash is a very real problem. The amount of space trash surrounding our planet is continuously growing, increasing the risk of collisions and of generating even more debris. Some debris, as we can see, end up on Earth in an alarming way.
Last year, we learned that a Florida family decided to sue NASA after a cylindrical object fall on their house. The object turned out to be part of a metal support used for the International Space Station’s old batteries. It’s not the first time something like this has happened.
Images | NASA
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