Or someone let us know since my guess is if a piece lands on you, you might be indisposed.
A five tonne, 20-year-old satellite has fallen out of orbit and is expected to crash somewhere on Earth on or around 24 September, according to Nasa. Nasa says the risk to life from the UARS – Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite – is just 1 in 3,200.
Hurtling at 5m (8km) per second, it could land anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south of the equator – most of the populated world. However, most of the satellite will break or burn up before reaching Earth.
Scientists have identified 26 separate pieces that could survive the fall through the earth’s atmosphere, and debris could rain across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) wide.
Nasa said scientists would only be able to make more accurate predictions about where the satellite might land two hours before it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
If you dodge that, there’s still camera lenses falling from the sky in Petaluma. Too bad it didn’t happen outside the new TWIT studios when John was there. That would have made for an interesting show.
This massive change in precipitation is clearly due to global warming. I think Al Gore mentioned it in his Climate Reality Day video. How did this site miss that?
Ha, back in the Skylab days, I had my first piece of writing published – I wrote a humorous peice for our local paper suggesting that we get residents of one of our smaller and more decrepit towns to wear magnets on their heads, so the town could get some reparation bucks from the government. Ka-ching!
Backward, turn backward, o time in thy flight – sigh, memories of my youth.
Humorous “piece”. Typo, sorry. I do know how to spell 🙂
Hey Lynn—why do you feel the need to correct your typos?
Hmmmm. I better burn those Mark Twain as well.
Re #40, Lynn, dont worry about you’re typos. Their everywhere on Dvorak. It used to bother me to, but after posting hear a while, Ive lerned to relax and just ignore all the other peoples misstakes. Half of theas guys dont no how to spell anyway.
Don’t worry. I’m sure the scrap metal dealers will find a use for it.
On an international Boy Scout trip during the summer of ’79, the Japanese Scouts made good fun with their chant:
Skylab
Skylab
ha ha ha
Somehow, we refrained from retaliating with Little Boy jokes.
I’ve got a hardhat, I’m gonna cover with tin foil, and put “NASA Go Home” across it, in large friendly letter.
So a one in 3,200 chance, is slim odds. But a one in 10 million chance of winning the Lottery is…. great! Play to win. How does this make any sense? It’s like “Shark Week”, on the Discovery Channel. The odds of getting struck by lightning in the US, is way higher than being bitten by a shark. But there’s no “Lightning Week” on the Weather Channel. And no “Hippo Week”, on Animal Planet. Though the odds of being attacked by a hippo, are better, than being attacked by shark. So why this inverse law of concern, about the least likely thing to kill you. And near zero concern for what very probably will. Like smoking, drinking, drug abuse, a poor diet. Yeah. Let’s see a “Killer Food Week” on the Food Network. Not gonna happen.
I’ve still got a piece of the Skylab, that survived its trip back to earth. It’s authentic, because I bought it at the Disney World gift shop. It’s encased in a Lucite pyramid and certified genuine. I would have sold it sooner. But when the space shuttles started crashing. I figured the Feds might get confused about what it was, and come to confiscate it. Then keep it for themselves, and say they lost it. Now that no more space shuttles will have a fiery death. And this latest reentry threat, has renewed interest. It might be time for me to unload this space collectible.