This past weekend the world had a scare because of a failed Chinese rocket launch. Remnants of China’s largest rocket launched last week are expected to plunge back through the atmosphere.

Finding out about this rocket caused a bit of panic especially in the United States, as the rocket got closer European and U.S. tracking centers said it wasn’t likely to land near the United States.

China’s foreign ministry said last Friday that most debris will burn on reentry and is highly unlikely to cause any harm. The U.S. military said that what it called an uncontrolled re-entry, was being tracked by the U.S. Space Command. As the rocket became closer, Space-Track, the ones reporting data collected by the U.S. Space Command, estimated the debris would make reentry over the Mediterranean Basin.

On Sunday, May 9th 2021, the parts from the Chinese Long March rocket fell into the Indian Ocean near the Maldives, China’s Manned Space Engineering Office reported Sunday morning, ending days of international speculation over whether rocket debris might be scattered over a populated area. The large majority of the debris Burt up on reentry.

The rocket was at 100 feet tall and weighing about 22 metric tons, the rocket stage is one of the largest objects to ever reenter the Earth’s atmosphere on an uncontrolled trajectory. The rocket’s reentry had started international concern about where it might land. Scientists studying the rocket said the risk to humans was astronomically low, but it was not impossible for it to land in a populated area. The rocket is now down and everyone can relax.

The Chinese rocket is obviously something that is very scary to us as Americans, what we can do to prevent this is make sure that we are aware of when the rocket is going to launch, what are the biggest consequences and what are the easiest solutions to fix this problem.