A Soviet Spacecraft Is Falling Back To Earth – There’s Just One Problem

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A Soviet Spacecraft Is Falling Back To Earth – There’s Just One Problem

We’re likely less than two weeks from a former Soviet Union spacecraft re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, but there’s a problem: nobody knows where it’s going to land – and it looks like it’s going to land, rather than burning up in the atmosphere.

Known as Kosmos 482, it’s part of a Venus lander that was sent into orbit in 1972 and has been stuck there ever since. The spacecraft’s mission to Venus failed, unlike the sister mission, Venera 8, which successfully

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, according to the Washington Post.

(MORE: Watch For These Big Celestial Events In May)

What To Know:

– Where could it land? At this point, it’s believed that a ******-landing is likely and could happen anywhere between 52 degrees north and south of the equator, experts told the Post. That’s pretty much anywhere from Quebec to Patagonia, the Post added.

– When might the re-entry occur? Marco Langbroek of SatTrackCam Leiden in the Netherlands, who first discovered that the satellite was falling back to Earth, used orbital data to calculate that

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. However, it could fall back to Earth any time between May 8 and 12, based on his current projections.

– How large is the spacecraft? Kosmos 482

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, according to NASA, and it’s nearly the size of a small car. If it remains intact and makes contact with the Earth’s surface, it could create an impact similar to that of a small asteroid.

What They’re Saying:

– “It should be visible as a bright fireball when it reenters the atmosphere.” -David Williams, head of NASA’s Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, told the Washington Post

– “As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact. The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero.” -Langbroek,

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– “The vehicle is dense but inert and has no nuclear materials. No need for major concern, but you wouldn’t want it bashing you on the head.” -Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in an

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– “Following its failed launch, Kosmos 482 broke into two pieces consisting of the main body and the lander. The former re-entered Earth’s atmosphere nine years after launch on May 5, 1981, while the descent craft remained trapped inside a slowly decaying orbit that has persisted for more than 50 years.” –

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