North Korea’s most recent long-range ballistic missile test demonstrated to the world that Kim Jong-un’s regime now possesses a platform capable of reaching further than ever before, with some experts extrapolating a range capable of targeting cities as far as away as America’s Boston or New York City.

More recent analysis of the overall flight path of the ICBM, however, shows that there’s a high likelihood that North Korea’s re-entry vehicle may have failed to survive the extreme temperatures of passing back through the atmosphere en route to its target, meaning Kim Jong Un may indeed be able to lob a weapon at the other side of the globe, but there are still no guarantees that he can hit anything with it.

Using video footage captured by Japan’s Hokkaido Prefecture broadcast by Japan’s NHK television, Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, believes he’s been able to confirm that the re-entry vehicle began to come apart 2.5 to 3 miles above the Earth’s surface, before dimming from view and disappearing entirely.

“Had the RV survived the rigors of re-entry, it would have continued to glow … A reasonable conclusion based on the video evidence is that the … re-entry vehicle did not survive,” he said.