divendres, 23 de març del 2018

Out-of-control Chinese space station will crash into Earth over weekend, says space station


The out-of-control Chinese space station will crash down back to Earth over Easter weekend, experts have said. 
According to the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office in Darmstadt, Germany, debris from Tiangong-1 will splash down between March 30 and April 2 across the northern hemisphere.
The space agency said these dates were "highly variable" and that it would be offering revised forecasts every couple of days.
"At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible," it explained in a statement .
"This forecast was updated approximately weekly through to mid-March, and is now being updated every 1~2 days."
Although most of the 8.5-tonne craft will disintegrate as it enters our atmosphere, some parts of debris weighing as much as 100kg could strike Earth.
Worryingly, the space station contains a rocket fuel called hydrazine, which can cause liver and nerve damage to humans after long-term exposure.
It's been on a collision course with Earth since China lost control of it in 2016.
"There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground," explains Aerospace , a technical and scientific research development that assists NASA.
"Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over."


The above map shows the organisations prediction of the landing site.
The yellow strips are the most likely areas to be hit, while the green areas are less likely. The large blue areas at the top and bottom of the planet are safe from any impact.
And, if you're worried about being hit by a wayward chunk of falling space station, Aerospace has some reassurance for you.
"When considering the worst-case location (yellow regions of the map) the probability that a specific person (i.e., you) will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot.
"In the history of spaceflight, no known person has ever been harmed by reentering space debris. Only one person has ever been recorded as being hit by a piece of space debris and, fortunately, she was not injured.
The Tiangong-1 space station is capable of housing three astronauts but it's real purpose was to serve as a prototype station for China's forthcoming space endevours.










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