Many were fearing for a possible disaster last night and this morning as it was reported that a Chinese rocket weighing 22 tons would be plummeting back towards the earth. The rocket had gone up outside of the earth's atmosphere although there was a failure somewhere down the line and it led to an uncontrollable path back towards earth. While most scientists figured the rocket would burn up in the earth's atmosphere and make its way into the ocean, some were fearing it could hit a crowded city.
In the end, disaster was avoided as according to TMZ, the rocket mostly burned up and then eventually landed in the Indian Ocean close to the Maldives. It was the best-case scenario for the re-entry which had social media ablaze.
S. Corvaja /ESA via Getty Images
In some videos posted on Twitter, debris could be seen hurling towards the Dead Sea in Jordan, although much of this footage is unconfirmed. Regardless, no one was harmed as a result of the rocket's trajectory and we should certainly all be thankful for that.
As a result of this malfunction, China has been receiving quite a bit of flack from the scientific community, specifically NASA, who claim the country needs to be a lot more careful, moving forward.
[Via]