Friday 23 September 2011

AHEM, SPACE JUNK


Space junk captured on video as it plummets toward Earth
By Sarah Anne Hughes
NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is expected to make reentry Friday, increasing some Earthlings’ anxiousness over whether a piece of space junk will whack them on the head.


The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). (NASA/REUTERS) North America dwellers can, at least, breathe easy. The latest projection from NASA shows that the satellite will not pass over the continent, as The Post’s Joel Achenbach reported.

The six-ton satellite will mostly break up during its return to Earth. But about 26 pieces weighing in at 1,200 pounds will make it through the atmosphere, the Associated Press reports.

These pieces will most likely hit water or unpopulated areas. NASA puts the risk of it falling near inhabited areas at “modest.”

In case you’re still not convinced that you will survive the return of the UARS to Earth, consider this: There’s a 1-in-3,200 chance a human will be hit. The odds that the human will be you is 1-in-21 trillion.

With that in mind, enjoy the haunting images of the UARS captured by amateur astronomer Thierry Legault. From Dunkirk, France, on Sept. 15, Legault used a telescope to film the satellite as it was 252 kilometers (or a little over 150 miles) away from Earth. (Watch the video here.)

It’s a beam of white light, glowing brighter, as it spirals through space. Legault created the images by modifying his telescope to track satellites

2 comments:

Zoompad said...

What a bloody lot of lying psychopaths. They know exactly where that pile of junk is going to fall. These people can pinpoint the exact spot the astronauts they send up into space will come down, they ahev the recovery teams waiting to pick them up! They've had that technology since the early Apollo moon missions, and it's 50 years on since those primative space technology days. They must think we are all idiots!

Zoompad said...

No wonder they wanted Gary McKinnon in their jail. Asperger Syndrome people are obsessive and often have photograpic memories, so Gary may inadvertantly discovered some pretty sinister things when he hacked their site. I bet Gary doesnt even realise what info he has accessed, but they do!