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

A strange buzzing sound followed by a loud bang startled Kenyan villagers while relaxing one afternoon with family and friends.

Stephen Manjoka, a 75-year-old farmer from Mukoko village in Makueni District, told the BBC: “It looked like a bomb, I was shocked. I started looking around, also wondering if they were gunshots.”

“I looked up at the sky to see if there was smoke. Nothing.

“I ran to the road to check if there had been an accident. Also, nothing. Then someone told me that something had fallen from the sky.”

In fact, a huge circular metal object fell from a farmland near a dry riverbed, and its temperature was extremely high.

“We found a large piece of metal that was very red, so we had to wait for it to cool before anyone could get close to it,” said Anne Canona, who told us she owned the land where the object fell.

The giant ring took about two hours to cool and turn grey, but it has already caused quite a stir as people arrive to look at it.

For the remainder of Monday afternoon — with as few people working as there had been the day before New Year's Eve — crowds came to see the giant metal ring.

It was like a selfie hub, with people coming to take pictures next to it and having great discussions about what it could be.

Local authorities in Makueni County, located about 115 kilometers (70 miles) southeast of the capital, Nairobi, were notified.

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

But the fame of this piece was so great that villagers in Mokoko feared it would be stolen overnight.

Some of them took turns with local officers to stand guard and light a fire nearby. They wanted to keep away potential scrap dealers and others who wanted to make money out of curiosity.

It is said to weigh more than 500 kilograms (1,102 lb) – roughly the same as an adult horse – and is about 2.5 meters (8 feet) in diameter, roughly the size of a four-seater children's toy.

As day broke, the number of spectators on New Year's Eve increased, followed by Team Saudi Arabia and the media.

Mokoko had never witnessed such activity before. When Saudi Arabia moved the piece later that day, the hype gave way to concerns about what the villagers were in their midst.

Saudi Arabia said its initial assessments indicated the object was a “separation ring” from a space launch rocket.

Its statement the next day said: “Such objects are usually designed to burn up upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over uninhabited areas, such as oceans.”

No one was injured when he fell, but some in Mokoko began to complain that the impact had caused damage to nearby homes.

Christine Kiyonga, who lives about a kilometer from the accident site, showed us cracks in the concrete in some of the buildings in her home complex. She said they showed up after the incident.

Other neighbors claimed that the structural integrity of their homes was also affected, claims that have not yet been proven.

Benson Mutoko, a Mukoko resident, told the BBC: “The government must find the owners of this piece and obtain compensation for those affected by it.”

There were reports in local media that some residents had begun to complain of feeling unwell after exposure to the metal ring although there was no confirmation from those we spoke to when we visited – nor from the authorities or Saudi Arabia.

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

“This is a space object, and we have heard in other similar incidents that there are radiation effects that even affect future generations, and there is fear in this community.”

However, tests by the Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority later revealed that although the metal ring contained higher radiation levels than the area in which it was found, it was not at a level harmful to humans.

Engineers from Saudi Arabia, which was established in 2017 to promote, coordinate and regulate space-related activities in the East African country, are continuing to conduct other tests to learn more about the object.

The Director General of Saudi Arabia said that it was fortunate that no major damage was caused when the object rushed to the ground.

Brigadier Hilary Kipkosgei told the BBC: “The ultimate responsibility for any damage or injury resulting from this space object lies with the state within whose jurisdiction the operator may have launched the object.”

Under the Outer Space Treaty, which is overseen by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, “States bear responsibility for damage caused by their space objects.”

Brigadier Kipkosgei said, “(The ring) is a common element in many missiles and many space objects, so it is difficult to attribute it to a specific missile or space object, but we have evidence, but as I said, our investigations are not conclusive.”

The BBC showed images of the object to the British Space Agency to get its experts' ideas.

“The most plausible object is the upper separation ring of the Ariane rocket in 2008,” said Matt Archer, launch director.

“The satellites are good, but the actual rocket body has passed through and out of orbit.”

Ariane was Europe's main rocket launch vehicle, and helped more than 230 satellites reach orbit, before it was retired in 2023.

It appears that the clincher may have been orbiting Earth for 16 years before its unexpected appearance at Mokoko.

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

Just over a year and a half ago, some suspected space debris fell over several villages in western Uganda.

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

As the space industry grows, such incidents are expected to become more frequent – ​​and African governments may need to invest in ways to better detect this accelerating space junk.

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 someone being injured by such waste, But most fall in the 1 in 10,000 range.

Such statistics are of little comfort to the residents of Mukoko, who cannot help but think of the damage the ring could have caused if it had fallen in the middle of the village instead of on farmland.

“We need guarantees from the government that this will not happen again,” Mutoko said.