China's Tumbling Rocket Booster Expected to Fall to Earth Tonight, May 8
The first module of the Chinese Tianhe-1 space station passes across the Sagittarius Milky Way in this 30-second time exposure taken at 3:56 a.m. May 5. Bob King UPDATE 10:45 p.m. CDT: The rocket stage reentered Earth's atmosphere around 10:44 p.m. CDT May 8 (Saturday), landing in the Indian Ocean a short distance west of the Maldives according to China's National Space Agency (CNAS). Most of the booster was destroyed. Sometime in the next 24-hours a 23-ton rocket stage is expected to fall to Earth somewhere between 41.5° north latitude and 41.5° south latitude. If you live north or south of that range, you're safe. (Find you latitude here ). If not, there's a extremely small but non-zero possibility that space junk could land in your backyard. The reason it will only fall within that band of latitude is because the stage orbits the Earth inclined 41° to the planet's equator. Tumbling end over end, the Chinese rocket booster flashes across the sky over Rome, Italy