Another Dead Satellite to Fall to Earth This Weekend

maquiladora

I remember there was a thread on the weather forum the last time this happened a few weeks ago.

From National Geographic :

If you see a large glowing object plummeting from the sky late Saturday or early Sunday, duck.

A defunct European satellite called ROSAT is headed straight for Earth this weekend—and chances are even higher that a piece of space debris could hit someone than the odds placed on a NASA satellite that fell from orbit last month.

The German Aerospace Center, which led the development and construction of ROSAT, estimates that the chance of anyone being harmed by debris from the satellite is 1 in 2,000. For NASA's UARS, the injury risk was roughly a third lower, at 1 in 3,200.

ROSAT is currently estimated to make an uncontrolled reentry during the early morning hours on Sunday, Greenwich Mean Time, said Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's space debris office.

But Klinkrad cautions that the satellite could enter Earth's atmosphere up to 24 hours earlier or later than the estimated time.

That's because shifts in radiation from the sun aren't 100-percent predictable. If solar radiation increases, there's more heating and expansion of the atmosphere, which would increase drag on the spacecraft and cause it to hurtle downward sooner than expected.

Don't Touch the Space Junk

Unfortunately, neither Klinkrad nor anyone else can say exactly where on Earth ROSAT is headed.

Debris could come down anywhere between 53 degrees north latitude and 53 degrees south latitude, an area that includes most of Earth's land mass, the German Aerospace Center's Roland Gräve said via email.

That could be a worry, because the satellite's 1.5-ton mirror is likely to survive the superheated trip through the atmosphere all the way to the ground, where it could make a major dent in whatever it strikes.

By contrast, the biggest piece of NASA's UARS spacecraft thought to hit the planet was a 300-pound (150-kilogram) chunk of the craft's frame.

In the end, the remnants of UARS splashed down into an isolated stretch of the Pacific Ocean, disturbing no one except perhaps a few fish. (See "NASA Satellite Debris Likely Fell in Ocean, May Never Be Found.")

Despite the higher odds, ROSAT is also unlikely to hurt anyone, scientists say, given the planet's large stretches of ocean and thinly populated areas.

"We accept risks in everyday life that are many orders of magnitude higher than the risks we incur from reentering space objects," ESA's Klinkrad said.

If bits of the satellite do land in a populated area, "they will be extremely hot," added the German Aerospace Center's Gräve. "This is why we recommend not touching any satellite parts" that do make it to the ground.

And any ROSAT debris, no matter where it's found, belongs to the German government, he said.

ROSAT Worthy of a Wake

ROSAT—short for Roentgen Satellite—launched in 1990 on a Delta II rocket to measure the x-rays emitted by objects such as neutron stars, dense stellar cores left behind by some supernovae.

The mission was supposed to last only 18 months, but the satellite kept chugging for eight years. Scientists finally shut it down in 1999 after its last functional scientific instrument accidentally pointed too close to the sun, blinding the sensors.

When ROSAT was on the drawing board in the 1980s, spacecraft designers didn't plan for the end of their vehicles' lives. So ROSAT was built without a propulsion system that would've allowed for a carefully choreographed demise.

"The attitude 20 years ago was still very much, Eh, space is big, and things that reenter probably won't hit anyone, so we won't worry about it," said Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientist who relied on data from ROSAT.

As far as McDowell can remember, nothing as big as the ROSAT mirror has smashed into the Earth's surface since the reentry of the Soviet space station Salyut-7 in 1991.

(Space debris pictures: "Five Unexpected Objects That Fell to Earth.")

The mirror is likely to come down intact in part because it's such a massive item, added University of Leicester physicist John Pye, who worked on the ROSAT program for nearly 20 years.

What's more, he said, the glass is a special heat-resistant variety, to keep the mirror from distorting the x-rays as its temperature changed in space.

Instead of being worried, however, the CfA's McDowell is feeling so nostalgic about the satellite's imminent death that he's planning a wake. There's just one problem: When to send out the invitations.

"I'm going to wait until it looks like it's going to come down," he said, "and then I'm going to email everybody: Anybody free? ... That's the trouble with these reentry celebrations. You're never sure when they'll be."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111019-satellite-fall-earth-rosat-space-debris-nasa-science/

And from Spaceweather :

ROSAT DECAY UPDATE: The doomed ROSAT X-ray space telescope continues to descend toward Earth. Multiple experts agree that re-entry should occur on Oct. 23rd, with most favoring the early hours of the day. With uncertainties exceeding 8 hours, however, it is still impossible to say exactly where ROSAT will disintegrate.

Last night Michael Boschat saw ROSAT flying over Halifax, Nova Scotia. "Wow... it was moving fast and I did not have time to take a picture. It went from overhead to my tree horizon in about 10 seconds! The satellite was about as bright as a 1st-magnitude star." Other observers have submitted similar reports.

track it with the following

http://www.n2yo.com/?s=20638

http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-101911_german-satellite-tracker-live.html

Sponge Bob

Rikand

its just about to pass over Ireland now.

Tornando9

I might aswell ask this question before some other gob****e does.

Will this satellite falling effect the outcome of this winter. Do you think it'll cause more snow to fall and give us a record breaking cold spell. What happens if the satellite hits the Donegal postmans house and the frog dies.

Will this satellite make it snow in Meath on the 23 of November at 16:30 as i have a friend flying out that day. He's heading to Iceland to p*ss on a volcano.

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

maquiladora

Tornando9 wrote: »

I might aswell ask this question before some other gob****e does.

Will this satellite falling effect the outcome of this winter. Do you think it'll cause more snow to fall and give us a record breaking cold spell. What happens if the satellite hits the Donegal postmans house and the frog dies.

Will this satellite make it snow in Meath on the 23 of November at 16:30 as i have a friend flying out that day. He's heading to Iceland to p*ss on a volcano.

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Yes.

muckish

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Looks like a giant drumkit.
CLouds and rain rolling in just in time 'cause god forbid we might get a glimps of something extraordinary in the skies.

Gran Hermano

In before Dana claims it is another attempted assassination.

Rikand

muckish wrote: »

Looks like a giant drumkit.
CLouds and rain rolling in just in time 'cause god forbid we might get a glimps of something extraordinary in the skies.

won't be over our skies at night for at least a day anyways, hopefully clear skies tomorrow night

Not

Tornando9 wrote: »

I might aswell ask this question before some other gob****e does.

Will this satellite falling effect the outcome of this winter. Do you think it'll cause more snow to fall and give us a record breaking cold spell. What happens if the satellite hits the Donegal postmans house and the frog dies.

Will this satellite make it snow in Meath on the 23 of November at 16:30 as i have a friend flying out that day. He's heading to Iceland to p*ss on a volcano.

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Some say a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the planet.... So..... a rather big out of control drumkit flapping a 1.5 tonne mirror as it plummets through the stratosphere probably has the potential to cause absolute snowmageddon...;)



edit : and if it happens to land on the wrong Icelandic volcano, it'll be yellow snowmageddon

Sponge Bob

Tornando9 wrote: »

I might aswell ask this question before some other gob****e does.

You are being too hard on yourself

Will this satellite falling effect the outcome of this winter. Do you think it'll cause more snow to fall and give us a record breaking cold spell. What happens if the satellite hits the Donegal postmans house and the frog dies.

It will cause black snow to fall for months, this snow will attract cold and the northern hemisphere will turn to Snow then Graupel.

The Frog man is in Kerry not in Donegal.

Will this satellite make it snow in Meath on the 23 of November at 16:30 as i have a friend flying out that day.

Out of where in Meath, are you insinuating that the takeoff roll in Dublin Airport will require a 15 mile long runway because of the snow??

thetonynator

Not wrote: »

Some say a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the planet.... So..... a rather big out of control drumkit flapping a 1.5 tonne mirror as it plummets through the stratosphere probably has the potential to cause absolute snowmageddon...;)



edit : and if it happens to land on the wrong Icelandic volcano, it'll be yellow snowmageddon

Could cause sudden stratospheric warming which could lead to a very coldwinter! The satellite will generate loads of heat warming up the stratosphere meaning if we were to knock a few more out of orbit we'd be guaranteed snow!!



:P

(definitely not a pisstake . . .:rolleyes:

maquiladora

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-73gv09nRk

weisses

mmmm ... so i can check the astronomy and space forum for the weather forecast ??

Mountainsandh

It seems part of the satellite may have fallen in France, on Friday around 9pm, these people spotted a light ball with flames trailing, falling very fast. As it got closer it broke into 3 parts which all disappeared from view, there was no sound and no remains were found on the ground.

http://www.leprogres.fr/loire/2011/10/23/on-a-vu-une-boule-lumineuse-tomber-avec-de-grosses-trainees-de-flammes

There were reports of debris falling also in other parts of France. It would be great if someone could find actual debris bits to confirm.


edit : just saw this on RTE. I wonder are the re-entry times an estimate, and wrong, or is it that the French people (several unrelated reports in different locations) saw something else.

or it could have been India



Parts of a defunct German research satellite have returned to Earth and likely fallen into the Bay of Bengal, east of India, the chair of the German Aerospace Centre says. Johann Dietrich-Woerner told CBC News on Sunday that the biggest piece could be 1.6 metric tonnes. Scientists have been trying to establish how and where the satellite returned to the Earth, after warning that some parts might survive re-entry and crash at up to 450 kilometres per hour. Andreas Schuetz, spokesman for the German centre, said initially that there immediate solid evidence to determine above which continent or country the ROSAT scientific research satellite entered the atmosphere. But Dietrich-Woerner said scientists now believe it fell between Indian and Indonesia. Most parts of the minivan-sized satellite were expected to burn up. The centre said the satellite entered the atmosphere Saturday between 9:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. EDT and would have taken only 10 or 15 minutes to hit. Schuetz said it could take days to determine exactly where pieces of the satellite had fallen. "I don't think that we'll have a confirmation of any sort today," he said, pointing out that it also took NASA several days to establish where one of its satellites had hit last month. Scientists said hours before the re-entry into the atmosphere that the satellite was not expected to hit over Europe, Africa or Australia. According to a precalculated path it could have been above Asia, possibly China, at the time of its re-entry, but Schuetz said he could not confirm that.