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A piece of a Soviet spacecraft, Kosmos 482, is expected to crash on Earth this week after 53 years in space, but no one is quite sure where it will hit. Most predictions have the object re-entering Earth’s atmosphere sometime around May 9th or 10th, but there is no way of truly knowing for sure.
The reason for that is because the Soviet-era spacecraft, which was meant to land on Venus 53 years ago, but malfunctioned, could break up into pieces or it may stay intact as it enters Earth’s atmosphere. Again, there is no way of predicting it.
“Because the probe was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere, it is possible the probe will survive reentry at Earth and reach the surface,” NASA wrote.
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek of Delft University of Technology wrote, “It likely will be a hard impact: I doubt the parachute deployment system will still work after 53 years and with dead batteries. There are many uncertain factors in whether the lander will survive reentry, though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory, and the age of the object.”
He estimates that the half-ton piece of spacecraft will hit Earth at 150 mph, assuming it remains intact. As for where the will hit, he says it could be just about anywhere, though given the amount of the planet that is covered in water, it will most likely not crash on land. However, he also stated that while the risks of the Soviet spacecraft crashing into a populated area “are not particularly high,” they are “not zero.”
Federally funded research group Aerospace Corporation’s latest prediction, as of this writing, is that Kosmos 482 will crash on Earth at 10:37 PM ET on May 9.
However, as NASA wrote on Thursday, “The time and location of atmospheric reentry should be known more accurately over the next day or so, but the uncertainty will be fairly significant right up to reentry.”
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