UARS Satellite Tumbling Back to Earth

No, that's not a meteor or an alien spaceship - that's an image of the falling NASA satellite UARS, captured by amateur astronomer Thierry Legault:

The six-tonne, 20-year-old spacecraft has fallen out of orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on Earth on or around 24 September.

The US space agency says the risk to life from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is 1 in 3,200. [...] Nasa says that most of the satellite will break or burn up before reaching Earth.

But scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the atmosphere. This debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide.

Link | Thierry's webpage (Image: Thierry Legault)


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