Nobody is sure where a huge piece of Chinese space junk is going to end up.
A new science laboratory module for the country's growing space station was launched from the Long March 5B core stage.
The rocket stage is expected to return to the atmosphere on Sunday.
That could lead to disaster. Since the rocket stage doesn't have any way of changing its trajectory, it will plummet back down to Earth and land where it may, which has been decried by NASA in the past.
Over 88 percent of the world's population lives under the reentry's potential debris footprint and there is a non-zero chance of surviving debris landing in a populated area.
Only 20% to 40% of the mass of the object is likely to make it down to the ground. That's still a lot of metal.
China's space program has done stunts before. The country has launched Long March 5B missions in the last two years.
In 2020 a village on the west coast of Africa is going to be hit by huge pieces of metal. The core module of China's space station went down in the Indian Ocean last year.
We haven't heard of anyone getting hurt because of these reentries, but that doesn't mean they won't happen in the future.
It is a careless way to dispose of a rocket stage.
Michael Byers, a professor at the University of British Columbia, told CNN that the risk of space junk is "entirely avoidable" due to technologies and mission designs that can provide controlled reentries.
The big Chinese rocket body is expected to fall on July 31.
There is more on the launch.
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