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A large piece of Chinese space junk crashed into Earth over Southern California early Tuesday morning (April 2), creating a dazzling display for observers in the Golden State.
The fall created a blazing fireball that was witnessed by people from the Sacramento area all the way to San Diego, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS). As of Tuesday afternoon, 81 people had reported witnessing the event To AMS.
A large piece of space debris was the orbital module of China's Shenzhou 15 spacecraft, according to an astrophysicist and satellite tracker. Jonathan McDowell. It's been there for a while. Shenzhou 15 launched three astronauts to the country's Tiangong Space Station in November 2022.
The Shenzhou orbital module, which weighs about 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg), provides additional space for astronauts and scientific experiments in space. It is not designed to return to Earth safely at the end of its mission; The Shenzhou Reentry Module is designed to do just that, and has astronauts on board.
Related: 6 types of objects that could cause the end of the world due to space debris
Of course, most people who saw the fireball streaking across the sky around 1:40 a.m. local California time (4:40 a.m. EDT; 0840 GMT) didn't know what it was.
Some believe it may have been A A piece of SpaceX hardwarewhich was a reasonable guess: A Falcon 9 rocket launched 22 of the company's Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base on California's central coast about six hours ago.
The burning debris could not have been the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket; This piece of hardware lands safely after launch and is reused. But the upper stage of a working rocket is disposable.
The Shenzhou 15 orbital module was not the first large piece of Chinese space junk to collide with Earth in a dramatic way, nor was it the largest.
The 23-ton (21 metric ton) core stage of the country's powerful Long March 5B rocket, the launch of which helped build Tiangong, routinely falls to the ground in an uncontrollable manner.
These debris crashes have drawn criticism from a variety of people in the space community, including the heads of NASA and the European Space Agency, who have denounced the incidents as irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
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