'Burning pencil' falls in Sulawesi jungle
'Burning pencil' falls in Sulawesi jungle
Agencies, Jakarta/Rome
Villagers living in a remote part of Indonesia's Southeast Sulawesi province reported on Tuesday seeing something like a "burning pencil" falling from the sky, which officials believe to be the first sightings of Italian satellite debris crashing to earth.
Amiruddin, administrative officer of Muna district, 1,663 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, told the state-run Antara news agency villagers of Marga Karya and Karya Bakti saw the pencil- like flaming object crash loudly into a heavily forested area last Friday.
Their reports of the satellite sighting were delayed by poor communications linking the two remote villages to Muna.
Amiruddin said his office strongly suspected the unidentified crashing object was debris from a satellite belonging to Italy's National Aeronautics and Space Agency (LAPAN).
LAPAN reportedly issued a warning last month that debris from their space satellite BeppoSAX would probably fall in Indonesian territories along the equator in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku or Papua.
It also warned some of the satellite debris might be toxic, and sightings should be reported to authorities.
BeppoSAX, weighing about 1.6 kilograms, was initially expected to fall to earth on April 19, said Antara.
On Monday, Italy said it had alerted 39 countries to the risk that a satellite it deactivated last year could crash in their territory within the next 48 hours.
The 1,400 kg (3,100 lb) satellite was expected to fall to earth between 1710 GMT on April 29 and 1403 GMT on April 30 (00:10 a.m. and 9:03 p.m. Wednesday Jakarta time) somewhere in a band straddling the equator that would include Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Italian Space Agency said it was keeping all 39 countries up to date on the uncontrolled re-entry of the BeppoSAX satellite, but there was a higher probability it would fall into one of the oceans than on land.
The satellite should explode into about 140 pieces, with only 700 kg expected to remain solid and potentially posing a threat, the agency said.
But it said it was impossible to assess in advance how much damage might be caused.
"We have taken measures unprecedented in the world to prepare ourselves and the countries concerned to this phenomenon," Vincenzo Spaziante, head of a special task force set up three months ago, told a news conference in Rome.