Is this a bomb? Is it a plane crash? No, it’s space junk

An eerie whistling sound followed by a loud roar startled Kenyan villagers who were recently on holiday with family and friends.

“It sounded like a bomb, I was shocked. I started looking around, also thinking it was gunshots,” Stephen Mangoka, a 75-year-old farmer from Mukuku village in Makueni County, told the BBC.

“I looked at the sky to see if there was any smoke. Nothing.

“I rushed to the road to check if there was an accident. Also nothing. Then someone told me that something had fallen from the heavens.’

In fact, a massive round metal object fell from above onto farmland near a dry riverbed – and it was extremely hot.

“We found a large piece of metal that was very red, so we had to wait for it to cool down before anyone could go near it,” said Ann Kanuna, who told us she owns the land where the object fell .

The giant ring took about two hours to cool and turn gray, but it was already a sensation as people came to see it.

For the rest of the Monday afternoon – when few people were working, as it was on New Year’s Eve – crowds gathered to look at the giant metal ring.

It was like selfie central, with people coming up to pose next to it, and great debate about what it might be.

Local authorities in Makueni County, about 115 km (70 miles) southeast of the capital Nairobi, have been informed.

The Kenya Space Agency (KSA) then got wind of it and arranged to come to investigate the next day.

But the object was so famous that the villagers of Mukuku were afraid that it would be stolen in one night.

Together with the local officers, some of them took turns keeping watch, lighting a fire nearby. They wanted to keep out would-be scrap dealers and others who wanted to make money off curiosities.

It is said to weigh more than 500 kg (1,102 lb) – about the same as an adult horse – and is about 2.5 m (8 ft) in diameter, about the size of a child’s four-seater merry-go-round.

With daylight on New Year’s Eve, more spectators appeared, followed by the KSA team and the media.

Mukuku had never seen such activity. When the facility was removed by the KSA later that day, the uproar gave way to concern about what was going on among the villagers.

The KSA said its preliminary assessments indicated the object was a “separation ring” from a space rocket.

“Such objects are typically designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over uninhabited areas such as the oceans,” it said in a statement the following day.

No one was injured in the fall, but some residents of Mukuku began to complain that the effects of the accident damaged nearby houses.

Christine Kionga, who lives about a kilometer from the crash site, showed us cracks in the concrete of some of the buildings in her house. She said they appeared after the wreck.

Other neighbors claimed the structural integrity of their homes was also affected – allegations that have yet to be confirmed.

“The government should find the owners of this facility and get compensation for those affected,” Mukuku resident Benson Mutuku told the BBC.

There were reports in local media that some residents began to complain of feeling unwell after coming into contact with the metal ring, although there was no confirmation from those we spoke to during the visit – neither from the authorities nor from the KSA.

However, Mr Mutuku said there were concerns about the long-term effects of possible cosmic radiation.

“It’s a space object, and we’ve heard in other incidents like this that radiation exposure is even affecting future generations, and there’s such a fear in this community.”

However, tests carried out later by the Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority showed that while the metal ring did have higher levels of radiation than the area where it was found, they were not at levels harmful to humans.

Engineers from the KSA, which was established in 2017 to promote, coordinate and regulate space-related activities in the East African country, continue to conduct other tests to learn more about the facility.

The KSA CEO said that fortunately, when the object fell to Earth, there was no significant damage.

“The ultimate responsibility for any damage or injury caused by this space object lies with the state in whose jurisdiction this operator may have launched the object,” Brigadier General Hilary Kipkasgi told the BBC.

According to the Outer Space Treaty, which is overseen by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, “States are responsible for damage caused by their space facilities.”

“(The ring) is a common item in many rockets and many spacecraft, so it’s difficult to attribute it to a specific rocket or spacecraft, but we have clues, but as I said, our investigations are not are final,” Brigadier Kipkasgei said.

The BBC showed pictures of the object to the British space agency to get the opinion of its experts.

“The most likely object it could be is the upper stage separation ring from the Ariane rocket in 2008,” said launch director Matt Archer.

“The satellites are fine, but the actual rocket body has passed and de-orbited.”

Ariane was Europe’s main launch vehicle, helping launch more than 230 satellites into orbit before it was decommissioned in 2023.

It appears that the separation ring orbited Earth for 16 years before unexpectedly appearing in Mukuku.

This is not the first case of space debris in East Africa.

A little over a year and a half ago, space debris is believed to have fallen on several villages in western Uganda.

And a few days ago, on January 8, there were unconfirmed reports that space debris was believed to be burning brightly in the sky over northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia.

As the space industry grows, such incidents are predicted to increase – and African governments may need to invest in ways to better detect this high-speed space debris.

According to NASA estimates, there are currently more than 6,000 tons of space debris in orbit.

There are many different estimates of the chances of someone getting hit by this kind of garbage. but most are in the one in 10,000 range.

Such statistics are of little comfort to the people of Mukuku, who can’t help but think about the damage the ring could have caused if it had landed in the center of the village instead of on farmland.

“We need assurances from the government that this will not happen again,” Mr Mutuku said.