Space junk – or orbital debris, as it is more technically known – is the remnants of human-made objects that have been sent into space but are no longer useable.

Whether the objects (sometimes satellites, stray pieces of equipment, or fragments of vessels) were struck by asteroids, broke up in space, or have simply expired past their useful lifespan, they sit in orbit around our planet, bound by our planet’s gravitational pull, littering the area of space above our atmosphere.

According to a NASA article on orbital debris, there are millions of pieces of space junk of various sizes orbiting our planet.

But eventually, every piece of space junk will fall back to Earth.

And as we send more and more spacecraft into space, more and more space junk will accumulate.

Now, NASA assures us, there is little need to worry, since most of this debris will burn up on re-entry through our atmosphere. And for those that do survive re-entry (an average of one piece every day), a splashdown into one of our planet’s many oceans is most likely.

However, a piece of space junk hitting the ground on one of our settlements isn’t outside of the realm of possibility.

And that’s why, when this mysterious 8-foot ring of metal arrived out of the blue in a remote village in Kenya, there was only one reasonable explanation.

This object must have fallen from space.

Speculation only continued as media outlets around the world continued to quote a fake post from the Kenya Space Agency, which suggested that the large metal ring was debris from an Indian rocket launch.

However, as the Kenya Space Agency confirmed in an official statement, they are still investigating the source of the object.

As worldwide space enthusiasts – and villagers in Mukuku Village, Kenya – wait to find out exactly what that was, other space experts are weighing in on the issue.

And according to a blog post from Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, it’s unlikely that the metal ring is space debris after all:

“It was suggested that the ring is space debris, but the evidence is marginal. I am not fully convinced that the ring is space debris at all.”

How can McDowell be so sure? Well he has explored all possible sources of large metal debris falling from space – and the likelihood of such objects actually surviving re-entry – and concluded that very little was out there to fit the profile and location of the object that was found.

If it was, indeed, space junk, according to McDowell only one source was possible:

“The most likely space related possibility is the reentry of the SYLDA adapter from the Ariane V184 flight, object 33155.”

This rocket, which was launched by the European Space Agency in 2008, was feasible, McDowell concluded, but unlikely – a sentiment that officials in France echoed too.

The jury is still out on what exactly this object is – but at least we now have a little more conclusion on what it isn’t, as we wait with bated breath for KSA’s next statement.

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