Out of control Chinese rocket could crash to Earth

Part of a huge rocket that launched the first Chinese module for its Tianhe space station is falling back to Earth, and could arrive in an uncontrolled way at an unknown landing point, although many claim it may land in Italy, in an area including between the center and the south of the country. In fact, currently the fall could occur in the belt between 41.5 degrees in the North and 41.5 degrees in the South.

The 30-meter-high core of the Long March 5B rocket launched the unmanned central module “Heavenly Harmony” in low Earth orbit on April 29, from Wenchang in the Chinese province of Hainan. The Long March 5B then entered a temporary orbit, setting the stage for one of the largest ever controlled returns. Some experts fear it could land on an inhabited area. "Potentially not good," said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University's Astrophysics Center. "The last time a Long March 5B rocket was launched we found large, long metal rods flying into the sky and damaging several buildings in Cote d'Ivoire," he said. "Most of it burned, but there were these huge pieces of metal that fell to the ground. We are very lucky that no one was injured “.

On Tuesday, the core orbited the Earth every 90 minutes about 27,600 km per hour with an altitude of over 300 km. The US military has called it 2021-035B and its path can be seen on websites at this link. It has dropped nearly 80km in altitude since the weekend, and SpaceNews reported that amateur ground observations showed the rocket was crashing uncontrollably. This, and its speed, make it impossible to predict where it will land when Earth's atmosphere eventually pulls it down, although McDowell said the most likely result is that it will fall into the sea, as the ocean covers about 71%. of the planet. However, it is too early to draw any conclusions because the orbit could undergo variations.