Happy Easter....With Love from China
China's first space station Tiangong-1, shown here in an artist's illustration, is expected to fall to Earth around April 1, 2018.
Credit: China Manned Space Engineering OfficeTiangong-1 is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime between late tonight and early Monday, according to the European Space Agency. The latest forecast from the non-profit Aerospace Corp. pegged the space station crash at 10 p.m. EDT tonight (0200 GMT Monday, April 2), give or take 7 hours, ). But the time of the re-entry – along with the geographic area – is still highly volatile as Tiangong-1 continues its descent.
As of today, Tiangong-1 is flying in an orbit of 104 miles (167.6 kilometers) and falling, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said in a statement cited by Xinhua News Service. CMSEO officials have said Tiangong-1 will mostly burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, and is unlikely to cause any damage on the ground, CMSEO officials added.
The chance of Tiangong-1 hitting any single spot on the surface is extremely low; a particular person would have a far better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot, according to Live Science. The odds of getting hit by space station debris were about in 292 trillion. The odds of winning the Powerball are about one in 292 million, according to Aerospace Corp.
The only human ever hit with space Junk is Lottie Williams and she was hit by a piece of a Delta II rocket that fell to earth in 1997
Tiangong-1 is just one example of large space modules falling apart in Earth's atmosphere. The descending Skylab space station famously dropped pieces into rural Australia, west of Perth, in 1979; however, Skylab was about 10 times more massive than Tiangong-1. Other prominent examples of uncontrolled re-entries include NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (2011) and Europe's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (2013).
Advice ? Buy a basket of popcorn tonight and watch the stars with a loved one ....shouldn't be at a park in Tusla though.
*winks*
China's Tiangong-1 space station is predicted to fall somewhere between the latitudes of 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south, the area shaded in yellow and green here. Original Image
Credit: Aerospace CorporationCredits
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