52 kg chunk of decaying satellite heads towards Earth: News

The European satellite ERS-2 should burn up almost completely in the atmosphere on Wednesday February 21, the European Space Agency communicates. The chance of any debris hitting a person is less than one chance in a billion.

Launched into space in 1995, the European satellite ERS-2 is completing its Earth observation mission and will soon disintegrate. According to the forecast of the European Space Agency (ESA), it should be almost completely destroyed in the atmosphere on Wednesday 21 February. More precisely in the lower atmosphere at an altitude of 80 km. Its destruction began in 2011 to prevent it from ending up in space and causing accidents with other active satellites or the International Space Station (ISS), Midi Libre suggests.

This is a rare event that deserves to be highlighted: debris from a satellite can fall to Earth. But it is difficult to calculate where it might land on our planet because its passage through the atmosphere is more or less slow. However, there is no need to panic like in a Roland Emmerich disaster movie (Independence Day, later in the day...). The 2.3 ton ERS-2 will not land on Earth.

What about a 52 kg piece?

According to Henri Lauer, from the Earth Observation Directorate at ESA, “It is estimated that the largest piece of satellite that could reach the ground is 52 kg”. But again, don’t panic, because according to the ESA, the chance of a person being hit by debris is less than one chance in a billion. In other words, the risk of a person being crushed by satellite fragments is 65,000 times lower than that of being struck by lightning.

Published on February 20 at 12:09 pm, Capucine Trollion, 6Medias

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