A large metallic ring suspected to be debris from space crashed in a village in Kenya’s south on Monday, the country’s space agency said.
A Kenyan Space Agency (KSA) official said the partially burnt metallic object measures about 2.5 metres in diameter, weighs about 500 kilograms and is most likely a fragment from a rocket.
“Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans,” the space agency shared in a New Year’s Day statement to X, describing the incident as “an isolated case.”
Following the discovery of a metallic fragment of a space object in Mukuku Village, Makueni County, the Kenya Space Agency has issued the following statement. Read more for details on the incident, preliminary findings, and next steps. pic.twitter.com/n8gsvoKku4
— Kenya Space Agency (@SpaceAgencyKE) January 1, 2025
Residents of the village of Mukuku in Makueni County, southeast of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, described their shock at the debris’s crash landing.
“I was looking after my cow and I heard a loud bang,” Joseph Mutua, a local resident, told Kenya’s NTV news channel, according to a translation from The New York Times. “I looked around; I could not see any smoke in the clouds. I went by the roadside to check if there was any car accident, but there wasn’t any collision.”
“If the object fell on a homestead, it would have been catastrophic,” Mutua continued. “We didn’t know if it was a bomb or whatever it was and it fell here.”
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Julius Rotich, Mbooni Sub County police commander, told the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation the object was still hot when officers arrived Monday, and that residents were kept away from the area until it cooled down.
Space debris and space junk are a growing problem, and last year the European Space Agency estimated there were more than 13,000 tons of material in low Earth orbit – about a third of it identified as space junk.
The agency estimates that with approximately 110 new launches each year, plus at least 10 existing satellites and other objects breaking up in space yearly, the amount of space debris stands to increase.
Last year, when a piece of orbital junk was discovered in rural Saskatchewan, the Canadian Space Agency told Global News it takes the issue of space debris “very seriously” and is working to ensure it doesn’t pose any “major risks” to Earth.
Barry Sawchuk found a giant piece of suspected space debris, as shown in this handout image provided by Sawchuk, in the field of his farm located near Ituna, Sask., on Feb. 28, 2024.
Barry Sawchuk / Handout / The Canadian Press
“With the increase in space traffic, space debris is an increasing issue, that we are all working very closely with national and international partners to find solutions to manage,” Stéphanie Durand, vice-president of the CSA’s space program policy, said at the time.
According to the KSA, the debris that fell in Kenya is being investigated under international space law.