Featured Image Credit: enot-poloskun / Getty
Expert trackers have predicted almost exactly when the 1,100lb Soviet spacecraft is expected to crash into Earth.
Launched in March 1972, the robotic spacecraft was originally intended to land on Venus as part of the Soviet Union mission. But things didn’t go as planned.
A rocket malfunction left Kosmos-482 stuck in Earth’s orbit, breaking into four separate pieces, where it’s now been slowly spiralling back towards the planet ever since.
It's finally coming down and the 53-year-old Soviet spacecraft is hurdling at a breakneck speed of 17,000 mph.
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Scientists have been monitoring the spacecraft closely and predict that it could crash land anytime between 9 May and 13 May.
While astrophysicist Dr. Jonathan McDowell says we don't know exactly where it will land 'until after the fact,' we do have a rough time of when.
Predictions are shifting daily, but current estimates suggest the re-entry could happen sometime on Friday or Saturday. One calculation was suggested by the Aerospace Corporation. The non-profit monitoring space debris pegged the re-entry at around 12:42 am (Eastern time) on 10 May, give or take 19 hours.
Meanwhile, Marco Langbroek, a lecturer, scientist and satellite tracker at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, has tracked Kosmos-482 for years. Instead, he estimates the landing closer to 4:37 am (Eastern) on 10 May, with a day leeway.
The problem is that the spacecraft weighs around 1,100 pounds and was designed to survive the toxic atmosphere of Earth's sister. That means it’s built to withstand extreme heat and will likely hit our planet's surface partly intact, at least.
But experts say we needn't worry as the risk of any injuries on the ground is low.
“I’m not worried — I’m not telling all my friends to go to the basement for this,” said Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, a company that tracks Kosmos-482 six times a day. “Usually about once a week, we have a large object re-enter Earth’s atmosphere where some remnants of it will survive to the ground.”
Dr. Langbroek described that Kosmos-482's orbit is currently angled between 'latitude 52 N and 52 S' which could be anywhere as far north as the UK and or as far south as New Zealand.
“The uncertainty in the reentry date will decrease once we get closer to the actual reentry, but even on the day, uncertainties will remain large,” Dr. Langbroek added.
As for what could happen, McKnight describes three potential outcomes: "a splash, a thud or an ouch." While the 'splash is really good' and most likely due to Earth's abundance of water, he hopes to avoid the 'thud' on remote land or the 'ouch' of a busy collision.
