Chinese rocket debris burning up in atmosphere is compared with meteor showers by netizens

On Saturday, several individuals posted footage of red, blue, and yellow blazes lighting up the night sky on social media, some claiming it to be the meteor showers. However, the reported firework-like meteor shower is basically pieces of a huge Chinese rocket that was crashing uncontrolled down to Earth after re-entering the atmosphere.  

The erratic Long March 5B booster rocket collapsed in a large water body close to the Borneo Islands in Southeast Asia, concluding its short orbital mission. Due to an unforeseen atmospheric pull, the rocket crashed down to Earth's surface. Because of its size, it did not entirely burn up before disintegrating into the Indian Ocean. 

This crash has been reported by the United States Space Command in a tweet, saying, “USSPACECOM can confirm the People's Republic of China (PRC) Long March 5B (CZ-5B) re-entered over the Indian Ocean at approx 10:45 am MDT on 7/30.” 

Chinese rocket's debris disintegrated into the Indian Ocean

According to a CNN report, on Sunday, July 24, at 2:22 p.m. (local time), the Chinese Long March 5B rocket was launched from Hainan Island with a new module for their space station. Further, the module safely docked with China's orbiting outpost. Following that, the rocket was in an uncontrolled descent toward Earth's atmosphere. It is worth mentioning that China has been accused three times of improperly managing space debris from its rocket stage, CNN reported. 

In addition to this, before the US Space Command gave its approval, the Aerospace Corporation predicted that the enormous piece of space debris would be unable to withstand the rapid temperature rise it would experience as it passed through the atmosphere and would eventually explode, posing a risk of damage or casualties. Over 88% of the world's population is within the potential debris footprint of the re-entry, according to the researchers at The Aerospace Corporation, therefore there is a non-zero likelihood that the surviving debris will land in a populated region. 

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told CNN, “No other country leaves these 20-ton things in orbit to reenter in an uncontrolled way".  

Besides this, a NASA astronaut, Chris Hadfield tweeted, “Looks like that Chinese rocket just burned up over Malaysia. Now wait to hear what big pieces splashed/thumped to Earth". 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated on Twitter on Saturday that China did not give exact trajectory information while the rocket descended down to Earth. According to Nelson, “All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property," CNN reported him as saying.   

(Image: Twitter/ @nazriacai)