A red-hot piece of space debris that weighs half a tonne plummeted to Earth this week, landing in a remote Kenyan village.
The charred metal object was later identified to be the separation ring from a launch rocket that crash landed in Makueni county, south-east of Nairobi.
Experts have warned that incidents of space junk landing in populated areas without breaking up on re-entry are on the rise as the amount of debris in orbit surges.
Authorities were still investigating the extent of the damage to the village of Mukuku as well as the ring’s origin and ownership, said Major Aloyce Were of the Kenya Space Agency.
“Space is no longer as safe as we used to know it,” he told local television stations.
Major Were added that the piece of glowing space junk, which weighs as much as a grand piano, landed in bushland on Monday and there had been no reports of injuries.
“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 agency later said in a statement, calling it an “isolated case”.