China's Shenzhou-15 Explodes In Los Angeles Sky, California Residents Are Anxious

JAKARTA - Californians were shocked on Tuesday morning April 2 when gold power from the explosion appeared above the Los Angeles sky. Initially, locals thought it was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched six hours earlier or a giant meteor that caught fire while crossing Earth's atmosphere.

However, aerospace researchers have said that the volcano object is the orbit object of China's Shenzhou-15 rocket launched in 2022.

The 3,300-pound object, the secondary part of the rocket, is not designed to safely return to Earth's atmosphere and is planned to circle Earth's planet along with other tonnes of space junk.

The witness of the explosion posted a video on social media showing the object passing through the sky at around 01:40 a.m. local time, and residents questioned what it was.

One person wrote on X: I think this is debris or something related to SpaceX's launch from the night before,' while others simply asked: Dude, what is that?

When news emerged that it was part of a Chinese rocket, comments on the country's involvement began to flow.

Heather Golden, a spokesman for Aerospace Corporation, told Dailymail.com that despite speculation that the explosion belonged to SpaceX, the analysis revealed that it was not a US rocket.

"Our analysis suggests that the objects seen re-entry above Los Angeles this morning are the orbital modules of China's Shenzhou-15 launch in November 2022 to their space station," Golden said.

The Shenzhou-15 rocket brought three astronauts when launched from Mongolia in November 2022. The 17,857-weight Shenzhou-15 rocket consists of several modules including modules that re-enter and safely bring astronauts back to Earth and parts of services that store hardware such as solar panels and life support needed for the mission.

Shenzhou-15 third sector, the orbital module, is a residence space for astronauts and organizing scientific instruments, equipment operated by crews, and other types of payloads required for missions.