In orbit 160 kilometers above our heads, the body of a Chinese rocket descends towards Earth at 28,000 km / hour.
It should enter the atmosphere by Monday.
If at this speed most of the device should disintegrate, a few pieces could fall on the blue planet, in a still unknown location.
It is not a meteorite, but a piece of a Chinese rocket that risks crashing into Earth.
The section of a spacecraft threatens to land quite suddenly in the coming days.
This is the central stage of the Longue Marche 5B rocket, launched at the end of April.
Its mission: to send one of the modules of the future Beijing space station into space.
Except that the device thirty meters long, five meters wide, weighing 21 tons, now makes the way in the opposite direction.
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Still in orbit, 160 kilometers above our heads, the rocket descends slowly but surely towards Earth, at 28,000 km / hour.
An uncontrolled entry into the atmosphere expected by Monday.
At this rate, most of the device should disintegrate, but a few stronger pieces may well fall to Earth.
A difficult trajectory to predict
The trajectory of the machine, which circles our planet twelve times each day, is difficult to predict, according to specialists.
They believe it is possible, but highly unlikely, that debris will crash into an inhabited area.
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Thursday, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, assured not to plan to destroy the Chinese rocket, while criticizing Beijing half-word for having lost control of it. Last year, a huge metal rod belonging to a similar Chinese rocket ended its race in a village in Côte d'Ivoire without causing any casualties.