World

Don’t look up, satellite is falling

by YankeeJim | September 17, 2011 at 07:25 am

146 views | 2 Recommendations | 2 comments

No Chicken Little

I warned that a satellite is falling somewhere, maybe near you.

The inability of scientists to predict where the debris will be falling is astonishing to me.

Apparently, they want everyone to feel comfortable with the odds that they will not win the lottery of being struck by various sized objects speeding to Earth at catastrophic velocity.

Well I warned you. Do you think Janet Napolitano will blink some lights or warn everyone to go to Home Depot and buy safety glasses or something?

“Satellite set to crash to Earth

September 18, 2011

A 20-YEAR-OLD satellite, pictured, that measured the ozone layer is expected to crash back to Earth late this week, but NASA says it does not know where it will fall.

The US space agency stressed that the risk to public safety from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was ''extremely small'' and said that most, but not all, of the gear would burn up on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

''Re-entry is expected on [Friday], plus or minus a day. The re-entry of UARS is advancing because of a sharp increase in solar activity since the beginning of this week,'' NASA said in a brief update on its website on Friday.

''Safety is NASA's top priority,'' it added noting that, throughout history, there had been ''no confirmed reports of an injury resulting from re-entering space objects''.

The decommissioned satellite could land anywhere between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude, a vast swathe of populated territory. Predictions will only get more precise as the landing approaches.

The spacecraft was officially decommissioned in 2005.

AFP”