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.
Watch for those surviving pieces ending up on Ebay
“is just 1 in 3,200” most lotteries are around 1 in 20 million
Nah, they’ll be sold to the nearest scrap metal dealer.
It would be really cool if it came down somewhere where a lot of cameras are rolling.
Practice for the ISS.
I live above 61° latitude no worries
It’ll be the end of the world. For somebody.
What are the odds?
This planet is 70% water, the 30% left is desert or at best uninhabited for the most part.
It’s not a hazard with ionizing radiation.
Even if they declared it was going to land right on Jersey City, if it missed my condo’s building what destruction would I suffer?
Get back to me with an impact GPS location otherwise, don’t bother.
1 in 3200 chance? With 6.4 billion people that means 2 million people will be hit by this satellite.
MikeN made a funny.
#9–MikeN===Bravo. Thats exactly what the statistic means. Why is there no panic?
Related: Wouldn’t it be sad for us to get hit by a meteor all the while we have the technology to detect it and blow it up?
What I mostly hear is blowing it up is no good because it will rain pieces down on us so we do nothing because we don’t have the tech to “move” it out of the way.
Seems to me a nuke should break a meteor up say into 10 pieces that would tend to burn up more than an intact meteor would? A bad case, maybe a saving case, rather than a worst case, maybe a killing case.
But we gotta rely on our government for that. They are too busy trying to oust Obama.
Sad.
The Petaluma lens is a Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM.
This is commonly sold with the Canon 5D. Interestingly, the front element seems to have survived the ordeal.
Reminds me of how much I wanted (but never got) one of those “Official Skylab Target” t-shirts.
#9. MikeN. I entirely agree.
“Nasa says the risk to life from the UARS… ”
Technically, they didn’t say human life. Estimating that the area between 57° N and 57°S is about 1/3 the Earth’s surface, then the potential area in danger is about 66 million square miles. Again estimating that 70% of all life on earth is concentrated in this area and is about evenly distributed, then 14,434 square miles would be destroyed… a total area roughly equivalent to the size of Montana.
HAW, HAW, HAW! I crack me up.
You don’t want to get killed by a toilet seat from space.
bobbo- If only it would HIT Obama. We could get back to more important things.
“They are too busy trying to oust Obama.” Doing something good for a change. Trying to preserve a future for the human race.
You just know that if any part of this satellite hits a government property or makes a bad headline that there will be some procedural changes made. Sort of like what happened with the TSA.
Focus alphie. No, no don’t look at the TV, eyes over here. We’re talking satellites here. That’s right, SA-TELL-ITES. Big thingies that float in the sky. That’s right little fella, try saying “satellites”. Good boy. Get a cookie.
#22. U are so mean! Alphie, If that satellite falls on you I will be there to help you. I’ll grab your hair and drag you to safety. If you got a toupee, rest assured I’ll find a hook and make sure it’s in there good to ensure a successful rescue.
Can’t we use StarWars (SID) to shoot it down?
#24, no, but what would be the point? It is already going down. Any explosion will send some parts further down and others away and split it up into pieces that will impact a larger area.
jezzzbus alf get a life or at least on topic.
I hope it lands in Pakistan.
Focus again alphie. SA-TELL-ITE. Or maybe space scooters for you bible science types.
Completely off topic, but of interest to people here:
Kurt Vonnegut ebooks from the Kindle store are on sale right now. I loaded up.
#2 – You are doing the math backwards. There is a 1 in 3200 chance that it will hit a single person at all, so for it to hit YOU specifically, there is a 1 in 6 billion times 3200 chance (1 in 19 trillion chance). And it’s Obama’s fault. Big government and their damn scientific satellites that keep falling out of the sky!
Oh yeah- we’ve all send JCD grumpy, cranky, happy, cheeky, but never really, really scared or freaked out. I’d tune in just to see that.
#32, thanks for clearing that up. That seems an awfully low probability. This could happen 1600 times and we’d have a 50-50 chance of a person being hit?