Chinese space station, Tiangong-1, fell through the atmosphere and burned up over the South Pacific Ocean this morning, near Tahiti.
Chinese space station Tiangong-1, shown here in an illustration, was launched in 2011.(Aerospace)
The Chinese space authority said the “vast majority” of the carrier burned up on re-entry, at about 8:15 a.m. Beijing time.
The uncontrolled re-entry of this station has focused global attention on the challenge of space debris or space junk as it’s also known.
The problem has been growing since the first satellite was launched in 1957.
In 1979 pieces of the United States’ Skylab landed in the Australian outback, and the nearby town sued the American government $400 for littering.
“What we need are international agreements so that anybody who puts anything up, has to take care of bringing it down when it come to the end of a lifetime.” CBC science journalist, Bob MacDonald said today during an interview on the Tiangong-1.
“So far that does not exist,” he said. “That’s what we need in the future so that this stuff doesn’t accumulate in the first place.”
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