A 22-ton Chinese rocket that was used to launch part of a new Chinese space station last week is tumbling down to Earth and is expected to hit the surface sometime in the coming week, but no one can say when or where the rocket will hit, CNN reports.
The Chinese Long March 5B rocket is expected to hit Earth’s atmosphere Saturday, May 8th, but its plummet to the surface will happen sometime between Saturday and Monday. There’s no way to tell where it will hit.
While it’s highly unlikely parts of the rocket will hit a person, it is possible that it could or that it could damage property depending on its entry point. Most space junk burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere as it reenters, but the size of this rocket makes some experts believe large chucks could hit the surface.
“I don’t think people should take precautions. The risk that there will be some damage or that it would hit someone is pretty small — not negligible, it could happen — but the risk that it will hit you is incredibly tiny. And so I would not lose one second of sleep over this on a personal threat basis,” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Astrophysics Center at Harvard University, said. “There are much bigger things to worry about.”