Finally we can narrow down potential reentry areas in Australia, US, Africa And the TIP message is out, showing reentry at 1534 UTC at location 20W 20N, just before the ground track passed over Nouakchott.

“Once they reach the lower atmosphere they are traveling relatively slowly, so worst case is they could take out a house.”Nora McGreevy is a freelance journalist based in South Bend, Indiana.

Her work has appeared in smithsonianmag.com Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.And a new prediction: between 1443 and 1555 UTC.

A nearly 20-ton chunk of a Chinese rocket fell uncontrolled down to Earth and landed in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, reports Allen Kim for While the notion of things falling from the sky might give Chicken Little pause, falling space debris does not usually present a threat to humans. The rocket’s empty core stage, weighing nearly 18 … SpaceTrack, which tracks objects such as satellites in our orbit, was only able to "The problem is that it is traveling very fast horizontally through the atmosphere and it's hard to predict when it will finally come down," McDowell said. The space shuttle Columbia from 2003 could be added to that list since it became uncontrolled on its descent back down to Earth.



At a Glance. Smart News Keeping you current A Huge Hunk of Space Debris Fell to Earth The 20-ton object, part of a Chinese rocket, is one of the largest ever to fall uncontrolled from space
It was the largest human-made object to fall uncontrolled from space since the fall of space station Salyut-7 in 1991, says McDowell on “For a large object like this, dense pieces like parts of the rocket engines could survive reentry and crash to Earth,” McDowell tells CNN. "McDowell notes that it would be localized damage and not something widespread, similar to if a piece fell off of an airplane and hit something on the ground.Tracking objects traveling quickly through the atmosphere is hard to predict.

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. "For a large object like this, dense pieces like parts of the rocket engines could survive reentry and crash to Earth," Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told CNN. As Stephen Clark reports for However, an object of this size falling to Earth is rare, Clark says. However, for a few tense hours, its re-entry path and … China launched its Long March-5B rocket with an unmanned prototype spacecraft on May 5.However, for a few tense hours, its re-entry path and eventual landing site were a mystery to those tracking its fall.The only larger pieces were Skylab in 1979, Skylab's rocket stage in 1975 and Salyut 7 in 1991. By "The Air Force's final prediction was plus or minus half an hour, during which time it went 3/4 of the way around the world. One of the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris fell back down and landed on Earth today, passing directly over Los Angeles and Central Park in New York City and landing in … A Chinese rocket that became one of the largest pieces of space debris plummeted towards earth today. “The Air Force’s final prediction was plus or minus half an hour, during which time it went 3/4 of the way around the world.
It’s pretty hard to do any better.”The rocket is the fourth biggest piece of space debris ever to fall back to Earth, per CNN. One of the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris fell back down and landed on Earth today, passing directly over Los Angeles and Central Park in New York City and landing in the Atlantic Ocean. “The problem is that it is traveling very fast horizontally through the atmosphere and it's hard to predict when it will finally come down,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tells CNN.

One of the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris fell back down and landed on Earth today, passing directly over Los Angeles and Central Park in New York City and landing in the Atlantic Ocean.

It's pretty hard to do any better."