After nose mask, should we wear helmet? Chinese rocket debris from space is falling onto earth soon. Brace yourself !

China forced nose masks on the world, thanks to the Wuhan virus. And even as many parts of the world struggle to bring the devastating effect of the rampaging virus under control, the Communist state appears not done yet.

The world currently sit on tenterhooks as we brace ourselves for a Chinese rocket debris that will probably strike the earth anytime soon.

It is as if just as some parts of the world are getting ready to wean themselves off nose masks, they have to be preparing to wear head masks, or better put, helmets.

Not the first time Chinese rocket debris has posed threat to humans on earth

Just a year ago, a Chinese rocket piece that had carried a part for the space station tumbled uncontrolled over New York and Los Angeles before smashing into Ivory Coast, in West Africa, where it damaged buildings but caused no reported injuries.

The said debris is from last month’s launch, the first of eleven such missions planned by China to build the new space station.

China is “careless”

The Long March rocket 5B launched to carry Chinese satellite into space

Many experts have criticized China. Some say, this is the latest example of China being irresponsible with its spacecraft.

Large rockets like this are not usually meant to reach orbit, rather crashing down into water before they get that  high. Alternatively, a rocket can use its engines to control its descent into the sea or an unpopulated area.

Some believe China has been surprisingly negligent. Given the sheer size of the rocket fragments, they say there is a significant risk that a sizeable chunk could fall to Earth instead of burning up in the atmosphere. “A rough rule of thumb” suggest that “between 20% and 40% of the dry mass can survive”, said Holger Krag, head of the European Space Agency’s space debris department.

So where will it land?

Scientists are generally divided as to where the debris will land on earth even if it would. Some say there is a tiny chance that the debris could hit New York, Los Angeles, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, the Nigerian capital of Abuja or even back to Beijing.

There are some who also argue that based on its current orbit, the rocket is passing over Earth as far north as New York, Madrid and Beijing and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, new Zealand, and could make its re-entry at any point within this area.

What is the nature of the rocket launched?

The rocket is 30 (100ft) meter high. It is the core of the Long March 5B rocket. The rocket launched the “Heavenly Harmony” unmanned core module into low Earth orbit on 29th April from Wenchang in China’s Hainan province. It will be the biggest piece of space debris to fall to Earth.

International Outcry

The White House has called for “responsible space behaviors” on the part of China. The US Space Command says it is tracking debris from the Long March 5B.

Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at Harvard University, has predicted that some pieces of the rocket will survice re-entry and that it would be the “equivalent of a small plane crash scattered over 100 miles”.

Will the US shoot it down?

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a successful intercept test

The US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday that the US military had no plans to shoot down the oncoming debris. “We have the capability to do a lot of things, but we don’t have a plan to shoot it down,” he told journalists.

Hopefully, he said, the rocket will land “in a place where it won’t harm anyone…in the ocean, or someplace like that”.

China’s reaction so far

China claim that the risks are minimal because most of the rocket components will probably be destroyed upon re-entry. “The probability of causing harm on the ground is extremely low,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told journalists on Friday.

We should be honest. Not only China is to blame.

When the skies above the Pacific Northwest lit up, many thought it was a big firefly or a plane but it was indeed a Space X rocket debris. This was confirmed by the National Weather Service in Seattle through a tweet.

“The widely reported bright objects in the sky were debris from a Falcon 9 rocket 2nd stage that did not successfully have a deorbit burn.”

Since the time of the Soviet Union, there have been countless examples of space junk falling freely onto earth. It is high time we held governments and Space companies responsible for the junk littered in space and the possible future consequences on humanity back on earth.

Just for 2020 launches, there are 32 rocket bodies in orbit. Fifteen of those pieces of space junk are Chinese. Ten were lofted by the U.S., five of them are reportedly on classified missions.

With tens of thousands of new satellites planned for launch in the years ahead by companies like Space X, OneWeb, and Amazon, more hardware junk is expected.