A shiny metal ring fell to Earth. Nobody Knows Where It Came From

It’s been a week since reports first emerged of a “shining metal ring” falling from the sky and landing near a remote village in Kenya.

According to the Kenya Space Agency, the object weighed 1,100 kilograms and was more than 8 feet in diameter when measured when it landed on December 30. Days later, the space agency boldly declared the object to be space debris. , saying it was a separation ring from the rocket. “Such objects are usually designed to burn up when they re-enter Earth’s atmosphere or fall into uninhabited areas, such as oceans,” the space agency said. he told The New York Times.

Ever since the first reports were published in the Western media, a small group of dedicated activists have been using open data to try to determine exactly what went down in Kenya. So far, they haven’t been able to detect a rocket launch from which the big ring would start.

Now, some astronomers believe that the object may not have come from space.

Did It Really Come From Heaven?

Space is getting bigger, but large rockets often don’t fly around Earth orbit undetected and untracked.

“They said the ring was space debris, but the evidence is slim,” he wrote Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. McDowell is highly regarded for his astronomical analysis. “A possible space-related possibility is the reinsertion of the SYLDA adapter from the Ariane V184 spacecraft, item 33155. However, I am not convinced that the ring is space debris,” he wrote.

A famous space explorer, Marco Langbroek, believes it is plausible that the ring came from space, so he also searched for material that may have returned to the time the object was found in Kenya. In blog post written on Wednesday he said that in addition to the metal ring, other pieces that looked like space debris—including what appeared to be carbon fiber and isolated films—were found several kilometers away from the ring.

Like McDowell, Langbroek determined that the main source of the substance was Ariane V launch that happened earlier in July 2008, when a European rocket lifted two satellites into geosynchronous transfer mode.

The Ariane V rocket was remarkable because it was designed to launch two satellites into geostationary transfer orbit, a more popular destination in the late 1990s and early 2000s than it is today. To accommodate both satellites, the SYstème de Lancement Double Ariane (SYLDA) shell was placed on top of the lower satellite to facilitate the lifting of the second satellite above it. During its launch in 2008, the SYLDA rocket was launched into a 1.6-degree inclined geosynchronous transfer orbit, Langbroek said.

Could It Be From A European Rocket?

For many years, this object has been followed by the US military, which maintains a database of space objects so that active weapons can avoid collisions. Due to the lack of tracking space near the equator, this feature is only observed from time to time. According to Langbroek, its last observation took place on December 23, when it was in its highest orbit, reaching a distance of 146 kilometers from Earth. This was the week that something happened in Kenya.

Based on his example of the reinsertion of the SYLDA shell, Langbroek believes it is possible that a European object could have arrived in Kenya at the time the shell was spotted.

However, an anonymous X account using the handle DutchSpace, which although anonymous has provided reliable information on Ariane launch vehicles in the past, he posted the thread which indicates that this ring cannot be part of the SYLDA shell. With the photos and text, it is clear that the size or weight of the SYLDA part is not comparable to the ring found in Kenya.

In addition, Arianespace officials he told the newspaper Le Parisien Thursday that they don’t believe that space debris was attached to the Ariane V rocket. Basically, if the ring doesn’t fit, you have to be released.

So what was it?

This article appeared first Ars Technica.