Quote:
Originally Posted by JD59
Fortunately, it landed in the ocean.
For a few hours Monday, a nearly 20-ton piece of space debris fell uncontrolled from the sky, passing over Los Angeles and New York City and causing a bit of stress for the experts tracking it before it safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
https://www.newser.com/story/290767/...ontrolled.html |
It was ~20 tons
while in orbit.
Whether any large pieces survived re-entry is unknown. Much of it would have burned up in the atmosphere, a process which would have broken it up into many smaller pieces, some of which would then have burned up or settled to Earth as harmless particulates.
The materially dense rocket engines
might have survived re-entry. But they would be very small compared to the stage as it was in orbit. Even a fall over New York or Los Angeles (at atmospheric terminal velocity - the burning up of the stage was, after all, due to friction, which slowed it down - and not at orbital speed) would more likely than not have impacted without harming anyone. After all, even in a place as densely populated as Manhattan, the ratio of square meters (larger than a human) to people is greater than 50 to 1, even before accounting for the way dwellings stack people on top of each other. And, of course, metro areas make up a small percentage of land, which is less common than ocean.
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