A massive cylindrical metal object had fallen from the skies and landed near a village in Myanmar earlier this month. It’s said to have landed once and then bounced nearly 50 meters before coming to a standstill on the ground.
Image Credit: Ko Muang Myo/Myanmar Times
Measuring nearly 4.5 meters in length, and judging the look of the object, it’s believed to be a fragment of a Chinese rocket’s engine that was used to carry a payload into space just a few days earlier. Interestingly enough, the objects that landed in Myanmar look very similar to that of what you’d expect to be lifting the Long March 11 rocket into space.
"Every local thought it was the explosion of heavy artillery," villager Ko Maung Myo told the Myanmar Times. "I walked over to it and saw it was part of an engine."
Electronics and wiring were also reportedly seen inside of the metal object.
In addition to the first, yet another large cylindrical metal object, about 2.5 meters wide and 13 centimeters in length reportedly tore into the roof of a house nearby, and it’s not believed to be a coincidence.
Some of the rockets used to lift free of the Earth’s gravity break away just as the object reaches the point of Earth’s orbital region where it can perform its job, and this is likely the piece that fell and crashed down in Myanmar.
Myanmar is just South of the launch site and experts agree that it’s entirely possible for a launch from China to end with piece of a rocket landing in that particular region.
Despite the dangerous activity, no one was harmed, which is great news especially for the piece that landed on the house. Despite everyone being okay, there’s roof damage on the house that will need to be repaired.
One thing that this situation does highlight is that China’s space agency is not as careful as others when it comes to planning its rocket launches. They operate in such secrecy that no one around the world ever really knows what they’re doing, and moreover, they don’t seem to care who they hurt in the process of space exploration.
This is not the first time a Chinese rocket has landed on someone’s house; a similar event also occurred last year. China was also responsible for a space lab spiraling out of control just above the Earth’s atmosphere with no projected trajectory path or landing point.
China really needs to work on their safety practices for space travel.
Source: Myanmar Times via ScienceAlert