• Kenyan officials are investigating who owns a mysterious metallic object that fell from the sky.
• The giant ring fell from space, crash-landing into Mukuku Village in Kenya on Wednesday.
• No one was hurt, but space debris poses a serious threat to life on Earth and in space.

On Wednesday, Mukuku Village in Kenya got an unexpected visitor from space.

At about 3 p.m. local time, a large metallic ring weighing about 1,100 pounds and measuring 8 feet in diameter crash-landed in the village, the Kenya Space Agency said in a statement.

The agency said no one was injured, and that the space debris poses no immediate risk.

Maj. Alois Were, an officer with the Kenya Space Agency, told Citizen TV, a Kenyan news station, that the ring-like object is "possibly from a rocket separation stage."

However, it's unclear whose rocket the ring might belong to. Officials said they had collected pieces from the impact site for further analysis to determine its origins.

Were said that once they determine the owner, the space agency will use the "existing legal mechanisms under international law" to hold the person or organization accountable.

Space debris is usually designed to either burn up in Earth's atmosphere before reaching the ground or land in unpopulated areas, like the ocean. This doesn't always happen, though.

For example, in May 2024, a piece of SpaceX debris as large as a car hood crash-landed on a trail at a mountaintop resort just outside Asheville, North Carolina.

If it had landed on a person hiking the trail that day, it would have certainly killed them, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leading space debris expert, told Business Insider in July.

To date, no one has died from space debris raining from the skies. Perhaps the closest call was in March, when a two-pound piece of debris slightly smaller than a soda can fell from the International Space Station, crashing through a family's roof in Florida. The family is suing NASA over the incident.

Ever since humans started launching objects into space in the late 1950s, there has been a risk that some might fall back to Earth in an unexpected place. As humans launch more objects into space, however, that risk is growing.

Between 2008 and 2017, global space organizations launched an average of 82 orbital rockets a year. That number jumped to an average of about 130 launches a year between 2018 and 2022, according to the US International Trade Commission. In 2024, there were about 250 launches — a new record.

This poses risks on Earth and adds to a long-existing problem in space: space clutter and collisions. There's a lot of trash in space, from dead satellites and astronaut gloves to tiny bits no larger than a grape.

These millions of bits of debris are racing around our planet faster than a bullet. It's gotten so bad that about 1,000 warnings of possible impending collisions are issued daily to satellite operators, physicist Thomas Berger said in a press briefing at December's annual American Geophysical Union meeting.

Berger said a major collision could generate "an unstoppable chain reaction of further collisions, ultimately resulting in a completely filled-up space environment."

If that happens, it could make space unusable.

• SpaceX launched its Starship mega-rocket system on Tuesday for the sixth time.
• SpaceX didn't attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster by a pair of "chopsticks" mid-air as planned.
• Starship moving towards full, rapid reusability is key to Elon Musk's plans for Mars.

SpaceX launched its Starship mega-rocket for the sixth time on Tuesday, but the main event was canceled.

The space company successfully launched the 36-story-tall rocket system but ended up abandoning its plan to catch the Super Heavy booster upon its return to Earth with a giant pair of metal arms, nicknamed "chopsticks."

SpaceX achieved the major feat for the first time in October, during Starship's fifth test launch.

Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO, has said his plans of building a Mars city rests on Starship.

The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built, consisting of two stages: a Super Heavy booster at the bottom and a Starship on top.

On Tuesday, Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines roared to life, heaving Starship through the skies.

After about three minutes, Super Heavy released itself and fell back to Earth.

When the catch attempt was called off, the booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico nearly seven minutes after launch while Starship continued on toward space.

SpaceX officials said on the company's livestream that the catch wasn't attempted this time because "strict criteria were not met" and this was a known possibility before launch.

During Starship's fifth test flight in October, SpaceX successfully caught the Super Heavy booster with a giant pair of metal arms, nicknamed "chopsticks," that caught it before it reached the ground.

SpaceX's next major milestone for Starship

Ultimately, Starship is designed to be the first ever fully, rapidly reusable rocket.

SpaceX has been reusing its fleet of Falcon 9 rockets for years, but only the first stage returns for reuse, the second stage is discarded after each launch.

Moreover, the Falcon 9 first stage lands on a barge in the ocean and must be retrieved for reuse, which takes extra time.

Starship is different. Both its first-stage Super Heavy booster and second-stage Starship are designed to be rapidly reusable by returning to the launch site after lift-off.

This is SpaceX's North Star. If the company succeeds, it could make spaceflight 10 times cheaper, and, ultimately, help humanity achieve multi-planetary status.

SpaceX's next major goal is to prove it can consistently retrieve Super Heavy and also retrieve Starship — but that milestone remains for another day.

For this test launch, Starship splashed down in the Indian Ocean as expected about an hour and five minutes after launch.

During its flight in space, Starship fired one of its Raptor engines for the first time, proving a capability it will need during future launches to return and touch down on land.

SpaceX also chose to launch Starship in the afternoon this time instead of the early morning, so that it can better observe Starship's landing, The New York Times reported.

SpaceX and Musk are racking up wins

Despite SpaceX not catching Super Heavy on its return to Earth, the test launch is still another successful step toward making Starship viable for orbital flights, moon landings, and eventually long journeys to and from Mars.

Tuesday's flight came just one month after the Starship's fifth test flight. That's a rapid turnaround for such a major test.

Maintaining this fast pace will be critical to achieving Musk's latest goal of sending the first Starships to Mars in just two years.

Another notable development was that President-elect Donald Trump attended the Starship launch.

Ahead of the event, Trump announced on Truth Social that he'd be in attendance, writing, "Good luck to Elon Musk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project!"

Trump's presence indicates just how influential Musk may become in the next administration, which could be a boon for space exploration.