The alarm returned due to the fall of the central stage of the Chinese Long March rocket which on 31 October had brought the third module of the space station into space.

Sardinia, together with Lazio, Molise, Puglia, Calabria, was among the five Italian regions on which according to the Civil Protection there was the "remote possibility" that fragments would fall.

The fall occurred in the south-central area of the Pacific Ocean , as confirmed with a tweet by the US Armed Forces Command responsible for Space .

The rocket stage is huge: it weighs from 17 to 23 tons and is about 30 meters long, dimensions that make it one of the largest debris of the recent past that has returned to the Earth's atmosphere. The re-entries of the US Skylab in 1979 and the Soviet Union's Salyut 7 in 1991, of approximately 77 and 40 tons respectively, are the only debris with a higher mass.

Part of the Spanish airspace was closed for over an hour due to the risk associated with the possible passage of the Chinese rocket, with obvious inconvenience for passengers, and then reopened around 10.30.

It is the fifth time in less than three years that Chinese rocket stages have crashed to Earth . As with previous launches, the Long March 5B rocket used is unable to restart its engines to perform a controlled reentry into the Earth's atmosphere .

(Unioneonline / D)

© Riproduzione riservata