"However, sky watching veteran and reentry tracker, Jonathan McDowell who works at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Inside Outer Space that there is "no obvious space candidate. I am not convinced it's not from an airplane. Don’t see obvious evidence of reentry heating.""

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/space-debris-crashes-into-kenyan-village-believed-to-be-leftover-rocket-hardware

@planet4589

#kenya #space #rocket #debris ?

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Jonathan McDowell who works at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Inside Outer Space that there is “no obvious space candidate

He has since revised his opinion after reviewing more data: https://bsky.app/profile/planet4589.bsky.social/post/3lezeu2zodk22

Well, my skepticism about the Kenya space debris may have been wrong. I reviewed the data again, concluding that Space Force estimates of the Ariane V184 upper stage reentry are unreliable; an assocation with this object can't be ruled out.

He has posted a more detailed writeup here: https://planet4589.org/space/misc/kenya/index.html