When you’re asked, “What’s up?” this weekend, here’s your answer: the Long March 5B, a roughly 44,000-pound rocket body that’s spiraling toward Earth.
But scientists are unsure when and where this debris — from China’s launch this past Sundayof its Wentian space-station module — will land. The Aerospace Corporation did release its latest predicted paths for the debris — with the disclaimer that it’s still too early to be certain.
Experts believe that 20 percent to 40 percent of the rocket body’s immense mass will survive its fiery journey through Earth’s atmosphere to the planet’s surface, but not in one piece. Seventy percent of the planet is covered in ocean, so the odds are that whatever is left of the rocket will land in water, but that’s not guaranteed.
The shoulder-shrugs in response to the potential dangers of Long March 5B’s debris are nothing new. Aaron Boley, the co-director of the Outer Space Institute and a planetary astronomer at the University of British Columbia, said about 70 percent of rockets that de-orbit and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere do so in an uncontrolled way, and rocket debris is just part of that risk.
In April, a 6- to 10-foot metal ring fell onto a village in India’s Maharashtra state. In 2020, a 39-foot metal pipe landed on two villages in Ivory Coast. In 2016, two rocket fuel tanks landed on islands of Indonesia. Earlier this month, parts of a SpaceX trunk capsule fell into paddocks in New South Wales, Australia.
“Every time we’re launching rockets, we’re rolling dice,” Boley said. “And the problem is, we’re rolling many dice, many times.”
Rockets are the transport vessel for anything put into orbit, including individual satellites and satellite constellations, telescopes, engineering projects and research modules. In 2021, there were more than 130 successful orbital rocket launches globally — a record — and 2022 is on pace to deliver even more as space development skyrockets.
“In the future, we might have companies launching rockets to build their own space stations, whether it’s for tourism or on-orbit manufacturing,” Boley said.
The trajectories of rockets can take a few shapes. Often, they gradually break apart during ascent, shedding heavy boosters or empty fuel tanks in a controlled process called staging. When staging occurs in the suborbital zone — where Earth’s gravity still has complete or near-complete effect on the dropped machinery — the launch teams can precisely plan where they will land (over an ocean).
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Other mission paths require that some stages of the rocket are abandoned in low-Earth orbit (LEO) — a region loosely considered as being between 180 and 1,250 miles above Earth — where they are left to drift, effectively, as space junk.
The technology is there to curb the danger. Just not everyone uses it.
This is not a technology problem. Some rockets, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, have re-ignitable engines, which can direct re-entry to an uninhabited (by humans) place on Earth, and sometimes even full-on return trips with landing pads ready and waiting for them.
But not all rockets are outfitted with these technologies, and even if they are, “there is an extra expense associated with recovery,” Boley said. “The customer may decide on a cheaper option, or the launch team may decide that it’s easier to dispose of the object in orbit.”
So the rocket bodies — including the particularly massive Long March 5B, which is not outfitted with reigniting engines — are left to litter LEO. It’s a policy decision many countries, including the U.S., seem fine with.
Over 1,000 rocket bodies and thousands of satellites are currently hurtling through LEO, completing revolutions around the Earth every 90 to 120 minutes.
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Gradually, these slow-burn orbital journeys — tracked most prominently and shared online by the Aerospace Corporation, an independent, government-sponsored nonprofit — are slowed down by drag, the same aerodynamic force that naturally counteracts an airplane or a race car, and fall to the Earth.
“It’s all kind of a funny thing, because an orbit is nothing more than falling toward something and constantly missing. And then eventually, gas drag makes it so, nope, it’s gonna hit this time.”
Where space debris lands is not always left to chance
The eventual landing spots for many of these uncontrolled entries are not always random — with many launched and landing around the equator.
In studying the orbital trajectories of the more than 1,500 rockets that have deorbited over the past 30 years, Boley and a team of researchers at the University of British Columbia estimated that there has been between a 10 and 20 percent chance of casualties due to rocket debris.
This is a far cry from the 0.01 percent risk threshold the United States applies to its launches, a casualty assessment that is often waived. “To my knowledge, there is no paper trail for the decision-making process that led to that [0.01 percent] number having been applied to launches and re-entries,” said Boley.
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“But we can’t paint space people out as bad guys,” said Timiebi Aganaba, an assistant professor and senior global futures scientist at Arizona State University who specializes in environmental and space governance. “[When the policies on space development were set], there were so few launches; it’s just not something that, 10 years ago, anybody would have been talking about.”
But now, as space continues to be commodified and rockets fly more frequently, both Boley and Aganaba agree that rocket debris is a collective action problem. Boley said the solution will require the international community to come together and agree on risk mitigation regulations.
How and when these rules will be made and followed is to be seen. It might take until “someone wins the lottery, so to speak,” of being unfortunately hit by space debris, Boley said. “Odds are it’s not going to be you, but someone’s going to do it.”
This article has been updated. Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
