It has been more than a week since alerts first aascendd about a “radiateing ring of metal” that fell from the sky and crashed proximate a far village in Kenya.
According to the Kenya Space Agency, the object weighed 1,100 pounds and had a diameter of more than 8 feet when meacertaind after it landed on December 30. A couple of days tardyr, the space agency bravely alerted that the object was a piece of space debris, saying it was a ring that splitd from a rocket. “Such objects are usupartner portrayed to burn up as they rego in the Earth’s atmosphere or to drop over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans,” the space agency tancigo in The New York Times.
Since those initial alerts were rehireed in Westrict media, a petite prohibitd of dedicated space trackers have been using uncover source data to try to resettle accurately which space object fell into Kenya. So far, they have not been able to resettle the rocket begin to which the big ring can be attributed.
Now, some space trackers think the object may not have come from space at all.
Did It Repartner Come From Space?
Space is increasingly crowded, but big chunks of metal from rockets are generpartner not flying around in Earth orbit undiscovered and untracked.
“It was recommended that the ring is space debris, but the evidence is marginal,” wrote Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist laboring at the Harvard-Smithsonian Cgo in for Astrophysics. McDowell is highly think abouted for his analysis of space objects. “The most foreseeed space-rhappy possibility is the reentry of the SYLDA alterer from the Ariane V184 fweightless, object 33155. Nevertheless, I am not brimmingy swayd that the ring is space debris at all,” he wrote.
Another famous space tracker, Marco Langbroek, thinks it’s plausible that the ring came from space, so he spendigated further into objects that may have returned around the time of the object’s uncovery in Kenya. In a blog post written Wednesday he noticed that apart from the metal ring, other fragments seeing reliable with space debris—including material that sees appreciate carbon wrap and isolation foil—were set up disjoinal kilometers away from the ring.
Like McDowell, Langbroek endd that the most foreseeed source for the object was an Ariane V begin that took place back in July 2008, in which the European rocket lofted two saalertites into geosynchronous transfer orbit.
The Ariane V rocket was a rather exceptional rocket in that it was portrayed with the capacity to begin two medium-sized saalertites into geostationary transfer orbit, a destination much more well-understandn in the tardy 1990s and punctual 2000s than it is today. To accommodate both saalertites, a SYstème de Lancement Double Ariane (SYLDA) shell was placed over the shrink saalertite to help the mounting of a second saalertite on top of it. During the begin in 2008, this SYLDA shell was ejected into a 1.6-degree inclined geosynchronous transfer orbit, Langbroek shelp.
Could It Have Come From a European Rocket?
Over the years, this object has been tracked by the US military, which upgrasps a database of space objects so that active spacecreate can elude collisions. Due to a deficiency of tracking stations proximate the equator, this object is only periodicpartner watchd. According to Langbroek, its last observation took place on December 23, when it was in a highly elliptical orbit, accomplishing a perigee of equitable 90 miles (146 km) from the Earth. This was a week before an object crashed into Kenya.
Based on his modeling of the possible reentry of the SYLDA shell, Langbroek thinks it’s possible that the European object could have landed in Kenya around the time its entry was watchd.
However, an anonymous X account using the deal with DutchSpace, which despite the anonymity has provided reliable alertation about Ariane begin vehicles in the past, posted a thread that recommends this ring could not have been part of the SYLDA shell. With images and write downation, it seems clear that neither the diameter nor mass of the SYLDA component alignes the ring set up in Kenya.
Additionpartner, Arianespace officials tancigo in Le Parisien newspaper on Thursday that they do not think the space debris was associated with the Ariane V rocket. Essentipartner, if the ring does not fit, you must acquit.
So what was it?
This story originpartner euniteed on Ars Technica.
