Post by mikeyp on Mar 27, 2018 16:56:42 GMT
CHINA'S DOOMED SPACE STATION: China's Tiangong-1 space station is about to return to Earth--as a massive fireball. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the 8-ton spacecraft will re-enter the atmosphere sometime between March 30th and April 2nd.
At the moment it is impossible to predict exactly where Tiangong-1 will re-enter. All we know is that it will disintegrate somewhere between +42.8 and -42.8 degrees latitude, the upper and lower limits of the station's tilted orbit.
Even with an uncontrolled re-entry, the odds strongly favor a descent over uninhabited land or ocean. According to the ESA, "[surviving fragments] will be scattered over a curved ellipsoid that is thousands of km in length and tens of km wide. The personal probability of being hit by a piece of debris from the Tiangong-1 is actually 10 million times smaller than the yearly chance of being hit by lightning."
At the moment it is impossible to predict exactly where Tiangong-1 will re-enter. All we know is that it will disintegrate somewhere between +42.8 and -42.8 degrees latitude, the upper and lower limits of the station's tilted orbit.
Even with an uncontrolled re-entry, the odds strongly favor a descent over uninhabited land or ocean. According to the ESA, "[surviving fragments] will be scattered over a curved ellipsoid that is thousands of km in length and tens of km wide. The personal probability of being hit by a piece of debris from the Tiangong-1 is actually 10 million times smaller than the yearly chance of being hit by lightning."
