Debris from an uncontrolled Chinese rocket could crash into New Zealand overnight as the spacecraft re-enters Earth's atmosphere.
The Aerospace Corporation's Centre For Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (Cords) estimates the rocket will drop out of orbit sometime overnight or tomorrow, as does European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking.
The Long March 5B rocket is about the size of a ten-storey building and weighs about 22.5 tonnes, the Aerospace Corporation said.
It was launched on October 31 last year, carrying Chinese space station Mengtian.
"The uncertainty of where the large debris will ultimately land presents a level of risk to human safety and property damage that is well above commonly accepted thresholds," the corporation said in a statement.
"Over 88% of the world's population lives under the re-entry's potential debris footprint."
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New Zealand is among those countries that could potentially be hit.
The corporation - which is a US-funded not-for-profit research centre based in California - said the rocket was too large to burn up in the atmosphere.
Combined with its uncontrolled re-entry, it presented enough risk that "precautionary preparation" around the world was justified.
China has been criticised before over the uncontrolled re-entry of its rockets, but has rejected the claims of danger as baseless.
Last year, a 21-tonne Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean after an uncontrolled re-entry
A study published in Nature Astronomy earlier this year analysed 30 years of data to reveal that there is a roughly one in 10 chance that at least one person will be killed by falling rocket debris in the next decade.
