Suspected space junk which crashed near an iron ore mine in remote WA has been linked to a Chinese rocket launch, as authorities continue to probe the object's origin.

The smoking piece of debris was found on Saturday about 30 kilometres east of Newman, on a BHP mine access track.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau and WA Police were investigating, but Flinders University space archaeologist Alice Gorman said she believed it's from the fourth stage of a Chinese rocket called Jielong.

"The last launch was late September, so this has been barrelling around the earth and quite suddenly has got pulled back to the atmosphere," Associate professor Gorman told ABC Radio Perth.

During the course of a spacecraft's orbit, it will discard several rockets and tanks which fall back to Earth in

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