It’s been more than a week since reports first emerged of a “glowing metal ring” that fell from the sky and crashed near a remote village in Kenya.
The Kenya Space Agency said the object weighed 1,100 pounds and was more than 8 feet in diameter when measured after landing on Dec. 30. A few days later, the space agency confidently reported that the object was space debris. They claimed that it was a ring separated from the rocket. “These objects are typically designed to burn up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere or fall into uninhabited areas, such as oceans,” the space agency told the New York Times.
Since these first reports appeared in Western media, a small number of dedicated space trackers have been attempting to use open source data to pinpoint exactly which space object fell on Kenya. So far, researchers have not been able to pinpoint any rocket launches that could be caused by the large ring.
Some space trackers now believe this object may not have come from space at all.
Did it really come from space?
Space is becoming increasingly crowded, but large hunks of metal from rockets usually don’t fly around Earth’s orbit undetected and untracked.
Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote that “the rings have been suggested to be cosmic junk, but the evidence is slim.” McDowell is highly regarded for his analysis of space objects. “The most likely space-related possibility is the re-entry of the SYLDA adapter from Ariane V184 vehicle 33155. Nevertheless, I am not at all convinced that the ring is space junk.” he writes.
Another prominent space tracker, Marco Langbroek, believes it is plausible that the ring came from outer space, and further researched objects that may have returned around the time of the object’s discovery in Kenya. . In a blog post he wrote on Wednesday, he said that apart from the metal ring, other debris believed to be consistent with space debris, including materials like carbon wrap and isolation foil, was found several kilometers away from the ring. He pointed out that it was discovered.
Like McDowell, Langbroek said the object’s most likely source was the Ariane V launch in July 2008, when two European rockets It was concluded that the satellite was launched into a geostationary transfer orbit.
The Ariane V rocket was a fairly unique rocket in that it was designed with the ability to launch two medium-sized satellites into a geostationary transfer orbit. Geostationary transfer orbit was a much more popular destination in the late 1990s and early 2000s than it is today. To accommodate both satellites, a SYstème de Lancement Double Ariane (SYLDA) shell was placed over the lower satellite and supported the mounting of the second satellite above it. During its 2008 launch, the SYLDA shell was ejected into a geostationary orbit tilted 1.6 degrees, Langbroek said.
Did it come from a European rocket?
For years, the object has been tracked by the U.S. military, which maintains a database of space objects to help active spacecraft avoid collisions. There are no tracking stations near the equator, so this object is observed only periodically. The last observation was made on Dec. 23, Langbroek said, when it entered a highly elliptical orbit and reached perigee, just 90 miles (146 kilometers) from Earth. This was a week before the object hit Kenya.
Based on modeling of the re-entry potential of the SYLDA shell, Langbroek believes the European object could have landed in Kenya around the time the entry was observed.
However, the anonymous I posted a thread showing. Looking at the images and documentation, it is clear that neither the diameter nor the mass of the SYLDA component matches the ring found in Kenya.
Additionally, Arianespace officials told Le Parisien newspaper on Thursday that they do not believe the space debris is related to the Ariane V rocket. Basically, if the ring doesn’t fit, you have to acquit.
So what was it?
This story was originally Ars Technica.
