CNET by by Eric Mack 8/1/2017
Last month an ancient Indonesian caldera rumbled once again, but not because of any unexpected volcanic activity.
On July 18, a strange metal object fell out of the sky and impacted the eastern shore of Lake Maninjau, which fills the caldera today.
"We were all very shocked when we heard the loud sound, so we followed the sound and ended up finding the exact position of where it fell," a 30-year-old man from the area named Sidik told Indonesian news site Tempo.co.
The object appears to be a piece of space junk, probably a fuel tank from a Chinese Long March 3A rocket, according to amateur astronomer Muh Ma'rufin Sudibyo, who wrote a detailed break down of the hollow, egg-shaped detritus' fall from space.
The hunk of junk has been sent to the science center of Indonesia's National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) for identification, but Sudibyo used the time and location of the object's fall, along with data from a satellite tracking service, to trace it back to the upper stage of a Chinese rocket used to launch a GPS satellite back in 2007.
More:
https://www.cnet.com/news/space-junk-rocket-fuel-tank-re-entry-indonesia/
