Satellite’s imminent fall to Earth stirs anxiety
A bus-sized, 6.5-ton, 20-year-old NASA climate satellite is falling out of orbit and likely to hit Earth some time Friday. It is impossible to say exactly where.
The chances are slim that anyone will see any of the 26 assorted pieces of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) that are expected to survive reentry into the atmosphere. The chances that someone, somewhere on the planet, will be hit by one of those chunks are 1 in 3,200.
The chance that any particular person (in other words, you) will be hit is infinitesimal: one in many trillions, according to NASA — which had noted on its website as of press time that the satellite would not be flying over North America during the anticipated re-entry period.
But the days leading up to the craft’s demise unleashed a flurry of excitement among space enthusiasts who track satellites and a welter of giddy articles about the possible risks.
foxnews.com offered a widget that allowed readers to track the satellite’s progress in real time. paddypower.com, an Irish gambling website, began taking bets on where the debris will land. Odds of one or more of the pieces landing in Ireland were pegged at 66 to 1, for example.
A poll item on ABC News’ website asked readers where they thought UARS would crash. Possible answers were “Harmlessly in the ocean,” “In mountains or open plains,” or “My house!” As of Wednesday afternoon, “My house!” was leading “In mountains or open plains” by a margin of 2 to 1.
Calm down, satellite watchers say. Stuff falls from the sky every day; big stuff — larger than 1,000 pounds and thus weighty enough to generate debris that falls to the ground — falls about once a week…