Failed Soviet probe will soon crash to Earth – and we don’t know where

More than 50 years after its launch, a Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos 482 is about to return to Earth. Originally he intended to land on the surface of Venus, but begins to fall separately into orbit of low land and never did it beyond. After decades of surrounding our planet on an orbit oval shape, it is finally about to return to the ground.

Kosmos 482 was launched in 1972, but due to the duration of the secret of the cold war period, little is known about its structure or exact mission. We only know that it was heading to Venus due to other Soviet missions that focused on our neighboring world at that time and because the spacecraft seemed to try to launch in a trajectory there before pieces were made. It is not clear what exactly caused the fault of the spacecraft, but three of the four fragments fell into New Zealand shortly after the launch.

The last fragment went to a higher orbit, with its point closest to Earth about 210 kilometers from above and is more distant about 9800 kilometers away. Over the years, the parties from the top of the Earth’s atmosphere have slowed this piece, reducing their path around the earth, and finally has godly enough to fall. It is expected to fall on May 9 or 10.

It is estimated that the remaining bit of the spacecraft, its landing capsule, has more than a meter wide with a mass of almost 500 kilograms. Between its size and the probability that it has been designed to survive a trip through the dense and dense atmosphere of Venus, it seems likely to survive its intact descent and hit the ground with force, up or 200 kilometers per hour.

It is impossible to predict where exactly the last piece of cosmos 482 will crash. Based on its current orbit, it could hit any place of the Earth between the latitudes of 52 ° and 52 ° to the south, an area that covers everywhere from the southern end of South America to parts of Canada and Russia. Grateful, despite that great strip of possible landing points, the probability that an inhabited area is low is low. “It is an infinitesimally small number,” said Marcin Pilinski of the University of Colorado Boulder in a statement. “It is very likely to land in the ocean.”

Pilinski is part of a team that tracks the rubble. As it continues to approach, the possibilities of where and when it will land will be reduced. The spatial garbage that falls to Earth as this is not uncommon: on an orbiting object that NASA is tracking falls every day, and most burns in the atmosphere or hits the ocean. Kosmos 482 is just a particularly large and resistant space piece of space.