A glowing ring of metal fell to Earth, and no one has any idea what it is

A view of the metal ring, nearly 8 feet wide, that fell from the sky into Mukuku village on Dec. 30 in eastern Makueni County, Kenya. Credit: Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images

It has been more than a week since reports first emerged about a "glowing ring of metal" that fell from the sky and crashed near a remote village in Kenya.

According to the Kenya Space Agency, the object weighed 1,100 pounds (500 kg) and had a diameter of more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) when measured after it landed on December 30. A couple of days later, the space agency confidently reported that the object was a piece of space debris, saying it was a ring that separated from a rocket. "Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans ...