Part of a huge unguided rocket will fall to Earth this weekend

On Saturday or Sunday, a massive unguided rocket booster will fall to Earth, and it is likely that at least some of its debris will not burn up in the atmosphere. About this with reference to the forecast Aerospace Corporation writes
science alert.

We are talking about the Long March 5B launch vehicle, which was launched by the National Space Administration. China (CNSA) on July 24, 2022 to deliver a new Tiangong space station module into orbit. The missile is 53.6 meters long and weighs about 23 tons.

The good news is that the chance of significant damage from debris is quite low. But the bad news is that, at the moment, scientists don't have a clear idea of ​​where the accelerator is likely to crash. So far, experts only agree that the reentry into the atmosphere will occur on the evening of the 30th or on the night of July 31, 2022.

On the published On the Aerospace Corporation map, the yellow lines show where the booster might be in the middle of the reentry window. A white line separates the day and night areas during this window.

According to preliminary data, 20-40% of the mass of the object will reach the ground, although this depends on the design of the object. There is not much open data on the Chinese Long March 5B, so the forecasts are rather vague.

It is worth noting that this is not the first such case. In May last year, parts of a similar Chinese rocket crashed in a remote part of the Indian Ocean, and in 2020 the booster crashed near Ivory Coast in Africa. Already this year, another rocket from China collapsed on the moon, although CNSA has never officially confirmed this.