Sky Event Over?

The remnants of China’s Long March 5B rocket re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 10.24am Beijing time and fell into an open sea area at 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees north latitude, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said on Sunday.

The majority of the remnants burned up during re-entry, the agency said, ending an anxious week as people and governments wondered where and when the space junk would fall.

The rocket, carrying the core module for China’s Tiangong Space Station, blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the southern island province of Hainan on April 29.

The large rocket stage that de-orbited was more than 33 metres (108 feet) tall and weighed more than 20 tonnes, making it the sixth largest object to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, according to the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research organisation based in California.

Very little of the rocket stage’s mass survived re-entry, however, with the majority having burned up as it entered the Earth’s dense atmosphere at a speed of about 8km (five miles) per second.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3132796/remains-chinas-long-march-5b-land-sea-space-agency-says