Debris From Russian Space Rocket Spotted Landing Over Johannesburg Over the Weekend, Mzansi in Awe
- An image of an odd-looking object captured soaring downwards over Johannesburg has been shared online
- According to the Astronomical Society of SA (Assa), it was “space junk” deorbiting from Midrand at 10.56pm on Sunday
- It is believed that the debris is from a Russian space rocket and was identified falling to earth as it moved slower than a meteor would
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Reports have revealed that debris believed to be from a Russian space rocket was identified falling to earth on Sunday night in Johannesburg.
An image from the rare occurrence was shared on Facebook by the Astronomical Society of SA (Assa) Johannesburg and shows an object, or objects, on fire as they head downwards.
Source: Facebook
“Some space junk falling to Earth over Johannesburg at 22:56 5 June 2022,” the post was captioned.
According to TimesLive, Carmel Ives, vice-chairperson of the Astronomical Society of SA (Assa), said she spotted the “space junk” deorbiting in Midrand at 10.56pm.
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Ives said it was from a Russian SL-4 rocket upper stage.
“You can tell it is space junk because of the speed at which it moves. It is space junk rather than a meteor as it is moving slowly, at 20,000 to 30,000km/h, and breaks up into several pieces. Meteors travel at 70,000 to 80,000km/h and appear as a single streak,” she said.
A few South Africans responded to the Facebook post, saying that they had also spotted the unusual sight.
Deon Hermes Diamond said:
“Saw it earlier.”
Landi Anina Cohen commented:
“We saw it too. Did it land somewhere?”
Lester Samuels responded:
“Don't know why my stuff gets delivered there? Can you please pick it up and send it to Cape Town?”
SA rocket successfully launches 17.9km into the air
In another story, Briefly News reported that South Africa's astronautic skills are slowly but surely reaching new heights - literally. A hybrid rocket built by a team of engineers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal recently travelled nearly 18km in the sky successfully breaking African rocket records for distance travelled.
The previous record for the rocket which is called The Phoenix-1B Mark IIr sounding rocket was set at 10.3km, making the latest record even more amazing - and this is something that the South African minister for higher education, science and innovation noted.
Speaking about the record-breaking achievement, Ndzimande said that it was a moment that will go down in history for the country. He also said that the achievement was a game-changer for South African space science.
Source: Briefly News
