Kenyan officials are investigating fragments of metal, believed to be from a rocket, that crashed into a village in the country’s south.
The issue of space trash has risen in tandem with increased spatial traffic, the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) warns.
The agency on Wednesday said the object, a metallic ring roughly 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing some 500 kilograms, crashed into Mukuku village, in Makueni county, on December 30 at around 3 pm local time.
The KSA, working alongside other agencies and local authorities, “secured the area and retrieved the debris, which is now under the agency’s custody for further investigation.”
It said “preliminary assessments indicate that the fallen object is a separation ring from a launch vehicle,” which are designed to either burn up upon re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere or fall over uninhabited areas.
“This is an isolated case, which the agency will investigate and address,” the KSA said in a statement.
It said the object was not a threat to public safety, and praised the villagers nearby who had swiftly alerted authorities.
The KSA said they were working to identify the piece’s origin. Past examples of man-made human space debris hitting Earth include part of a SpaceX Dragon capsule landing on an Australian sheep farm in 2022.
“Space junk is a growing problem, and while this may be an isolated case, the threat is real,” the KSA posted on X.
“Some pieces of space junk are as large as cars or even buses, and if they were to fall, they could pose significant risks to property and human life. Everyone needs to be aware of this and report anything suspicious to the authorities.
“Scientific models estimate that there are approximately 29,000 pieces of space debris larger than 10cm, 670,000 pieces larger than 1 cm, and over 170 million pieces larger than 1mm. So chances of them being related are minimal.”
Earlier this year, NASA faced a lawsuit from an American family whose Florida home was hit by a piece of falling metal.
China has also been criticized by NASA for allowing its giant Long March rockets to fall back to Earth after orbit.
