Debris of China’s disintegrating rocket falls into Indian Ocean

The debris from China's disintegrating Long March rocket entered the Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday and reportedly fell into the Indian Ocean area close to the Maldives, the country's space agency said, ending an anxious week as people and the governments wondered where and when the space junk would fall. The remnants of China's Long March 5B rocket re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 10.24 am Beijing time and fell into an open sea area at 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees north latitude, China's Manned Space Engineering Office said. The rocket, carrying the core module for China’s Tiangong Space Station, blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the southern island province of Hainan on April 29. Very little of the rocket stage’s mass survived re-entry, however, with the majority having burned up as it entered the Earth’s dense atmosphere at a speed of about 8km per second, the Post report said.