PETALING JAYA: Sarawakians were treated to an unusual display of light streaks passing through their sky during the fiery re-entry of a massive chunk of space junk from the Chinese Long March rocket that crashed to Earth early yesterday.
According to the US space agency Nasa, the debris from the 22.5-tonne core stage of the Long March 5B rocket was reported to have begun re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean at approximately 12.45am yesterday.
In a statement posted to the official China Manned Space Agency’s WeChat profile, the agency said most of the electronics on the rocket had detached from its main body and was destroyed during the re-entry.
This dramatic display, which some call “meteor”, was seen from Bintulu, Sibu and Kuching. The display was also captured on video and circulated on social media.
“Meteor spotted in Kuching! #jalanbako 31/7/2022,” said Nazri Sulaiman (@nazriacai) on Twitter. However, he later corrected himself to say it was the rocket’s remains.
“Kuching Sarawak.. meteor or apa?” tweeted hanifDaslepzz (@hanifDaslepzz).
Hanif later corrected himself to say it was the Long March rocket and mentioned how “explosions” were heard over Kuching that night.
According to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: “The video from Kuching implies it was high in the atmosphere and any debris from it would land hundreds of km further along its path, near Sibu, Bintulu or even Brunei.
“It’s ‘unlikely but not impossible that one or more chunks hit a population centre,” he tweeted.
The Long March 5B rocket was launched with a mission to deliver a laboratory module to the new Chinese space station under construction on July 24.
The Malaysian Space Agency (Mysa) had previously said the debris from the rocket was unlikely to land in Malaysia as it was expected to disintegrate on entry into the Earth’s atmosphere and reminded the public not to panic or spread false information about the event.
