A Russian spacecraft is about to slam into Earth – and it could pose even more danger than it appears, experts have warned.
The spacecraft, called Kosmos 482, is due to fall into Earth’s atmosphere over the weekend. Experts have been tracking it closely to understand where and when exactly it will fall to Earth, in part to protect the people who could be below.
That could be especially important because the spacecraft was specifically built to withstand intense conditions. That means that – unlike other recent and highly publicised space junk that has fallen to Earth – it could make it through the atmosphere intact and so pose yet more of a risk to anyone below.
Kosmos 482 was built to land on Venus. It was launched from Earth in 1972 but one of its rockets malfunctioned.
In the years since, it has been floating around Earth in an “eccentric” orbit that is set to collide with our planet over the weekend.
Venus has temperatures of 477 degrees Celsius and a pressure more than 90 times our planet, and so the spacecraft was specifically built to withstand intense heat and pressure. As such, the roughly one meter and 500 kilogram spacecraft is likely to fall to Earth without burning up or breaking apart.
Scientists expect it to arrive on Saturday morning, somewhere in the western hemisphere. But the exact time and location is very difficult to predict, and so it could arrive before or after that.
Predicting the path of the spacecraft is difficult not only because of Kosmos 482’s complex orbit but because it will be falling through the upper atmosphere, which can change dramatically and unpredictably because of the influence of the Sun as well as from Earth.
“The odds that this relic will land in a populated area are very low, it will very likely land in the ocean. But we can’t yet say for certain where that will be,” said Marcin Pilinski, a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“People who monitor asteroids to see if they will potentially impact Earth actually have an easier job. Those objects would enter at a really steep angle. They’re not skimming part of the atmosphere for days or weeks like this spacecraft.”
