On November 12, China’s Long March 6A rocket broke aside after launch, scattering particles in low Earth orbit. Now, stories counsel that the disintegrated higher stage of the rocket has grown to a cloud of 350 items of area particles.

The rocket launched at 5:52 p.m. ET on November 11 from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China, carrying the Yunhai 3 environmental monitoring satellite tv for pc.

Shortly after delivering the satellite tv for pc to low Earth orbit, the higher stage of the Long March 6A rocket broke aside, the South China Morning Post reported on the time. The U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron tracked 50 items of area particles ensuing from the rocket’s break up at an estimated altitude of 310 miles to 435 miles (500 to 700 kilometers), the squadron introduced on November 13.

Nearly a month later, consultants are nonetheless monitoring the disintegrated items from the rocket. “There are now 350 debris objects cataloged from the Nov 12 disintegration of a Chinese rocket stage (CZ-6A Y2), in sun-sync orbit,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer on the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote on Twitter primarily based on ongoing monitoring by the Space Defense Squadron.

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China has been reckless with its rockets earlier than, however the Long March 6A rocket breakup wasn’t meant to occur. The rocket’s higher stage was imagined to reenter Earth’s environment in a single piece, and expend throughout reentry. It’s not clear what went incorrect to trigger the rocket to interrupt up earlier than its reentry.

The rocket breakup despatched particles flying close to Starlink’s web satellites, however Chinese officers are claiming that items of the rocket won’t threaten different low Earth orbit property. “As far as we know, the relevant incident will not affect the Chinese space station or the International Space Station,” Mao Ning, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, is quoted within the South China Morning Post as saying throughout a press convention.

As of final yr, more than 27,000 items of area particles have been being tracked in orbit by the Department of Defense’s international Space Surveillance Network, with a lot of smaller items additionally floating round undetected.

More: Science Satellite Dodges Threatening Space Junk on Just 8 Hours Notice