Is it a bomb? Is it a plane crash? No, space junk

A terrifying screeching sound followed by a loud boom startled Kenyan residents who were relaxing recently one afternoon with family and friends.

“It sounded like a bomb, I was shocked. I looked around, I wondered if there had been gunshots,” Stephen Mangoka, 75, a farmer from Makueni in Mukuku district, told the BBC.

“I looked up at the sky to see if there was any smoke.

“I rushed to the road to check if there was an accident. Nothing else. That’s when someone told me that something had fallen from the sky.”

In fact, a large spherical object fell from above onto farms near a dry riverbed – and burned pipes.

“We found a large piece of metal that was very red so we had to wait for it to cool before anyone approached it,” said Ann Kanuna, who told us that she is the owner of the place where the object fell.

The giant ring took about two hours to cool and turn gray – but it was already causing quite a stir as people flocked to view it.

For the rest of that Monday afternoon – there were few people working as it was New Year’s Eve – crowds came to view the great metal ring.

It was like a selfie in the middle, with people coming to stand next to it and debate about what it could be.

Local authorities in Makueni district – about 115km (70 miles) south-east of the capital, Nairobi – have been notified.

The Kenya Space Agency (KSA) then heard about it and made arrangements to come and investigate the next day.

But the reputation of this thing the residents of Mukuku fear that it will be stolen overnight.

Together with the local police, some of them took turns to guard, setting fires nearby. They wanted to avoid scrap dealers and others who wanted to make money out of curiosity.

It is said to weigh more than 500kg (1,102lb) – about the size of a full-grown horse – and is about 2.5m (8ft) in diameter, about the size of a four-seater child’s merry-go-round.

With daylight came many spectators on New Year’s Eve – followed by the KSA team and the media.

Mkuku had never seen such work. When the item was released later that day by the KSA, the uproar was fueled by concern about what the residents had in their midst.

KSA said its initial tests revealed the object was a “separation ring” from a space launch rocket.

“Such objects are usually designed in such a way that they burn up and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or fall into uninhabited areas, such as the ocean,” it said in a statement the next day.

No one was injured when it fell, but some in Mukuku started crying that the impact of the accident caused damage to nearby houses.

Christine Kionga, who lives a kilometer away from the accident site, showed us the cracks in the concrete of some of the buildings in her compound. He said they were seen after the accident.

Some neighbors suspect that the orderliness of their homes has also been affected – allegations that are yet to be confirmed.

“The government needs to find the owners of this thing, and get compensation for those involved,” Mukuku resident Benson Mutuku told the BBC.

There have been reports in local media that some residents have begun to complain of discomfort after being exposed to the metallic ring although there was no confirmation from those we spoke to during our visit – either by the authorities or the KSA.

However, Mr Mutuku said there are concerns about the long-term effects of space radiation.

“This thing is something from space and we have also heard from other incidents like this that there were effects of radiation that affect even future generations and there is that fear in this community.

However, later tests by the Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority revealed that although the metal ring had higher levels of radiation than what was found in it, it was not at a level dangerous to humans.

Engineers from KSA, which was established in 2017 to promote, coordinate and manage space-related activities in the East African nation, continue to conduct further tests to find out more about this matter.

The director general of KSA said that it was fortunate that no major damage was done when the object hit the ground.

“The ultimate responsibility for any damage or injury caused by that space lies with the country that the person using the space may have introduced into the space,” Brigadier Hillary Kipkosgey told the BBC.

According to the Outer Space Treaty, overseen by the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, “states will be responsible for damage caused by their space objects”.

“[The ring] it is common to many rockets and many space objects so it is difficult to say whether it is related to a certain rocket or a certain space object but we have a clue but as I said our investigation is not conclusive,” said Brigadier Kipkosgey.

The BBC showed images of the object to the UK Space Agency to get their experts’ thoughts.

“The most likely sound is the separation ring of the upper stage and the Ariane rocket in 2008,” said launch director Matt Archer.

“Satellites are fine, but the actual rocket body has arrived and landed.”

Ariane was Europe’s largest rocket launch vehicle, helping more than 230 satellites into orbit, before it was retired in 2023.

It appears that the separation ring may have been orbiting the Earth for 16 years before its unexpected appearance at Mukuku.

This is not the first incident of space debris appearing in East Africa.

More than a year and a half ago space debris allegedly fell in several villages in western Uganda.

And a few days ago, on January 8, there were unconfirmed reports of what was believed to be space debris burning brightly in the sky above northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia.

As the space industry grows, it is predicted that incidents like this will become more common – and African governments may need to invest in ways to better detect this fast-moving space debris.

Nasa estimates that there are more than 6,000 tons of space debris in orbit right now.

There are many different estimates about the chances of such garbage hitting someone, but most are in the 1 in 10,000 range.

Such figures are of little comfort to the residents of Mukuku, who can’t help but think what kind of damage the ring would have caused if it had stayed in the middle of the village instead of on the farms.

“We need assurance from the government that it will not happen again,” said Mr Mutuku.