NASA Falling Satellite Will Not Hit North America
Parts from UARS, the climate satellite NASA recently reported as descending into Earth’s atmosphere will not land in North America, according to the space agency.
The satellite is expected to enter it on Friday September 23.
It is expected to break apart into several pieces and land somewhere on the Earth’s surface.
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Unfortunately scientists will not be able to predict where the debris will fall until about two hours before the satellite’s impact.
NASA did however confirm that North America was not in danger.
“Re-entry is expected sometime during the afternoon of Sept. 23, Eastern Daylight Time,” said agency officials in a statement. “The satellite will not be passing over North America during that time period. It is still too early to predict the time and location of re-entry with any more certainty, but predictions will become more refined in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
Both NASA and the United States Air Force are keeping a close eye on the descending UARS.
“With re-entry we’re always interested in day-by-day and hour by hour details,” said Mark Matney, a scientist with NASA’s Orbital Orbital Debris Program Office, told SPACE.com.
“It’s very difficult to predict how it’s going to happen,” he added. “With our models, we try to figure out what parts of the spacecraft- what materials- will interact with the atmosphere in terms of temperature and melting, and determine which of those will survive. But it’s a very dynamic environment, the force is very intense.”
Scientists projected that the parts would fall somewhere in between northern Canada and southern South America.
As the spacecraft moves closer to impact, scientists will get a better idea of where the parts of it will land.
NASA expects the UARS to break into 26 large pieces when the bus sized satellite enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
Officials predict that there is a good chance that most of the pieces will fall into water.
