If you survived the earthquake, Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, and all the flooding, there is another chance to defy the odds. It seems that now a man-made satellite the size of a school bus will come crashing to earth. Scientists are unsure of the exact location.
According to the Washington Post:
It’s the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS — YOU-arz — and it’s currently tumbling in orbit and succumbing to Earth’s gravity. It will crash to the surface Friday.
Or maybe Thursday. Or Saturday.
Out-of-control crashing satellites don’t lend themselves to exact estimates even for the precision-minded folks at NASA. The uncertainty about the “when” makes the “where” all the trickier, because a small change in the timing of the reentry translates into thousands of miles of difference in the crash site.
As of the moment, NASA says the 35-foot-long satellite will crash somewhere between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude — a projected crash zone that covers most of the planet, and particularly the inhabited parts. In this hemisphere, that includes everyone living between northern Newfoundland and the frigid ocean beyond the last point of land in South America.
Polar bears and Antarctic scientists are safe.
It’s the biggest piece of NASA space junk to fall to Earth in more than 30 years. It should create a light show. The satellite will partially burn up during reentry and, by NASA’s calculation, break into about 100 pieces, creating fireballs that should be visible even in daytime.
An estimated 26 of those pieces will survive the re-entry burn and will spray themselves in a linear debris field 500 miles long. The largest chunk should weigh about 300 pounds.
To date, no man-made space junk has ever hit a human being. So how long will that luck hold out? How about NASA and the space agencies of other countries just not put stuff up there when they don’t know how they are going to bring it down? Do you think if our space junk falls on some foreign country that those hit are going to be real forgiving? I would not be.
So meanwhile, do we just take a wait and see point of view? Since the earth is 3/4ths water, it stands to reason that there is greater likelihood the debris will fall in the water. But then there is that 1 in 4 chance that it won’t that bothers me. As more and more space crap goes up, eventually more and more space crap will need to come down. Have we designed our own self destruction in yet another way?
Right now it sounds like if you are standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, YOU ARZ SOL, forever.
Interesting looking satellite, too. If you handed me all the parts to make a satellite, this UARS thing is likely what you’d get from me. You gotta think that if you get killed by a satellite falling from space, that is God saying “Come here, right this instant…I need to talk to you”. I want that on my epitaph: “Cancer-Shmancer, I got hit by a giant satellite from space!!….Top THAT!!”
How is that we can send a spaceship to Mars, Jupiter, or wherever, and have it end up exactly where we want it, but can’t predict the time or place a bus orbitting earth will hit?
@NTK, agreed. And not only can we do those things, we have been able to do those things for at the past 50 years. So I guess we sit here and wait for a bus to drop down on us and splat us like a bug.
Report has it the odds of getting hit are 1 in 3,200. With that, I’m getting out my hard hat for sure. Either that, or I’m going to find a crowd of at least 3,199 people to stand with. Hmmmm……I’ve got it, I’ll go to an air show!
@SA
👿
Its going to get you one way or the other. Actually, those aren’t really very good odds.
@Second Alamo
SA – those are actually somewhat high odds. Assuming a population of 300 million people, it means almost 94,000 Americans are likely to get whacked by this thing.
Here’s another idea. Ahmadinejad should be back in Tehran by crash day. Can we secretly direct it to fall on his a$$? We could deny any interference and then send a letter of apology. We’ve already said publicly that we have no idea where it will land. Oops. Use the ensuing chaos to send in some Seals to rescue the hikers (without paying the ransom).
Assuming no one dies form this thing.. It’s like hitting the lottery. The government will pay almost anything to get it back and if it damages property you can collect some serious $$$$.
I bet it’s part of the Stimulus plan. 😉
@marin
You are far more sophisticated than I am. It made me immediately think of the cow pie lottery that Brentsville High School used to have. All that was needed was a fenced lot, grids, and a cow. They brought in all sorts of money.
@Need to Know
No one can predict the exact path due to variations in satellite drag. The Earth’s atmosphere expands and contracts due to variations in the solar wind/magnetic field. Drag increases (decreases) at low-earth-orbit satellite altitudes as the atmosphere expands (contracts).
If you fly with any frequency and look out the window, that’s when you get a good idea of just how little of the Earth is actually populated. Don’t commercial airliners drop potty-cicles out during a flight? I’ve always wondered about that. Every once in a blue moon, you hear about someone getting killed by a poop-meteor from a plane.
I used to worry about that when I was a kid, pokie. I don’t think they do that. It gets taken care of on the ground.
Moderation….Ha-Ha-Ha!!
@Moon-howler
However, if you have small kids and want them to come inside wait for a plane to fly somewhat in the area (not hard around here) and tell the kids to run inside in case someone flushes.
That isn’t still working as well as it once did.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Run!