China's Tiangong-1 space station to hit Earth by April 2
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), China's first space station Tiangong-1 will crash to Earth within a couple of days. Debris from the now-defunct space station is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere between March 30 and April 2. You can watch the re-entry on March 28 (1200 GMT) on a free webcast by the Virtual Telescope Project led by astrophysicist Gianluca Masi.
China lost control of Tiangong-1 in 2016
Earlier in 2016, China had admitted that it had lost control of the space station, which is currently hurtling towards the Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry. Tiangong-1, which literally means 'heavenly palace,' was launched in 2011. Used for both manned and unmanned missions, it was visited by China's first female astronaut Liu Yang in 2012.
Not sure where the space station will re-enter Earth's atmosphere
Experts still haven't been able to figure out where the 8.5-tonne space station module will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. Expected to re-enter somewhere between the 43° North and 43° South latitudes, its chances are slightly higher in Northern China, the Middle East, Central Italy, Northern Spain and the US, New Zealand, Tasmania, parts of South America and Southern Africa, the ESA predicts.
Some debris can survive re-entry, but won't hit anyone
While most of the space station will disintegrate and burn up in the atmosphere, a small amount of debris from the module can also survive re-entry and hit the Earth. However, a human injury is "extremely unlikely." "The probability of being injured by one of these fragments is similar to the probability of being hit by lightning twice in the same year," ESA said.
The real risk
According to the ESA, the real risk is debris objects from Tiangong-1 in space colliding with other such elements and creating an "exponential cascade, with one collision causing thousands of fragments that in turn start colliding with others." The US Space Surveillance Network currently tracks some 23,000 debris objects in space traveling at up to 28,000 kilometers per hour.
Nearly 6,000 uncontrolled re-entries have happened so far: ESA
"Over the past 60 years of space flight, we are nearing the mark of 6,000 uncontrolled re-entries of large objects, mostly satellites and upper (rocket) stages," the ESA informed.
