Wreckage of a giant Chinese rocket Long March 5B will fall to Earth in a few hours, but so far no one knows where exactly

On October 31, China used the Long March 5B to launch the last module of its own orbital station into orbit. The first stage of the huge rocket will fall not next week to Earth, but in a few hours.

Here's What We Know

The dry mass of the first stage of Long March 5B is 21,000 kg. The large and heavy object will not be able to burn up completely in the atmosphere. It is assumed that debris weighing from 2,100 kg to 8,400 kg will fall to Earth, which is 10-40% of the total mass of the rocket.

Long March 5B flew into space four times and all the time fell uncontrollably to Earth. Last summer the wreckage landed in Indonesia and Malaysia. Fortunately, there were no fatalities.

Alas, scientists have not yet been able to determine exactly where pieces of the rocket's first stage will fall this time. The impact zone includes New Zealand and Chile in the south and New York, Madrid and Beijing in the north. For now, we can only hope that Chinese experts were not wrong in their calculations, which say that the debris will fall into the ocean.

Source: spacenews