An 11-foot metal ring in a Minnesota cornfield likely fell from a Chinese rocket
Gizmodo connects the Minnesota find to a second piece of Zhuque-2E debris in Indonesia, and to the bigger question of who pays when rocket parts land.
A farmer in Stevens County, Minnesota, found a circular metal object about 11 feet wide in his cornfield, Gizmodo reports, citing the county sheriff's office. It likely lay there for about six weeks and matches the upper stage of a Zhuque-2E rocket built by the Chinese company LandSpace, which launched Sept. 15 and made an uncontrolled reentry over the upper Midwest.
Authorities said the object poses no danger to the public. Separately, Gizmodo says a roughly 30-foot aluminum plate found on a palm oil plantation in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan this week appeared, according to Indonesia's research agency, to come from another Zhuque-2E launched Oct. 14.
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ARES | Orbital Debris Program Office | Frequently Asked Questions
After exploring A Minnesota Farmer Found an 11-Foot Metal Object in His Cornfield. It Came From Space, for how often this happens and the real risk, NASA answers in its ARES | Orbital Debris Program Office | Frequently Asked Questions.
NASA's FAQ explains what orbital debris is, how it is tracked and what happens on reentry, noting that debris striking an individual is unlikely.
NASA Orbital Debris Program Office · Swim · 30 min
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Zhuque-2
After exploring A Minnesota Farmer Found an 11-Foot Metal Object in His Cornfield. It Came From Space, the rocket family itself is described in Zhuque-2.
Zhuque-2 is a LandSpace medium-class launcher that burns liquid oxygen and methane; it was the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
Wikipedia · Wade · 5 min
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