A space station called Tiangong-1 will fall into the Earth's atmosphere around April 1, shattering but less likely to cause harm to humans.
China has launched the Tiangong-1 space station (Sky 1) into the sky in 2011. The 9.4-ton space station flies around the Earth without any Chinese astronauts inside. By March 2016, China said it had lost contact with Tiangong-1 after it "completed its historic mission."
Tiangong-1 could drop into the Earth's atmosphere by April 1, according to forecasts by Aerospace Corp., a nonprofit space research organization.
Image simulates the Tiangong-1 space station falling into the Earth's atmosphere.
No one knows exactly where Tiangong-1 will fall, but the very high possibility is that it will be the ocean. According to calculations, the ability to win a jackpot Powerball of a person is 1 million times higher than the damage of Tiangong-1 hit.
Difficult to predict location
Turning to Earth at a height of 400 km, any ship must reach speeds of over 28,000 km / h. This means that the ship is all around the Earth every 90 minutes. Even at this altitude, ships like Tiangong-1 are still being sucked into Earth. If it does not speed up regularly to adjust the trajectory, it will slow down and fall down.
"Over 100 km, the atmosphere is much thinner. You can not survive but it's still thick enough to slow you down, "said Jesse Gosner, a US Air Force space-flight instructor.
"Like a guessing game, there is no way to know where it will fall." Even at the close of the day, the forecast is still around 6 days. It may fall as early as March 29 and the latest on April 4.
Gossner says this uncertainty is due to the nature of the Earth's atmosphere and the speed of falling of the object. "Did you try to throw a stone into the lake? It will bounce several times, then fall into the water. " Tiangong-1 Space Station, according to Gossner, is like that stone.
Simulate an ATV spacecraft falling, burning and breaking apart as it hits the Earth's atmosphere.
"It can 'bounce' a few times in the atmosphere because it moves so fast," he said. "If it touches a soft surface, it will look like a rock bouncing on the water. But it can also fall straight and sink straight down. "
"Even if you know exactly where it collides with the atmosphere, the debris and furniture inside will also come out with very wide ranges. This is really a guessing game. There is no way to know where it will fall. "
Where is the highest probability of falling?
Tiangong-1 is likely to fall into the sea, because water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. In fact, space agencies often try to navigate the orbits of large space ships so that it falls to the Pacific Ocean because it is the largest and least likely hazard zone.
Some of the spacecraft's fragments are still likely to land because collisions with the Earth's surface create a lot of debris, with orbits moving unpredictably.
The yellow spots are where the debris of Tiangong-1 is likely to fall to the highest.
Even so, experts maintain that the space station in China is almost impossible to fall into a residential area.
"Nothing is impossible, but since the space age began, only one woman has been injured in the shoulder because of debris from falling space," Aerosoft's Ailor said.
In the case of a piece of titanium, a computer or piece falling on the roof or windows of the house, they will receive adequate compensation, according to international space law. "China will be held accountable if they injure or have property destroyed," a NASA representative said.
Tiangong-1 will fall in the next few days. The fragment of the Tiangong-1 space station is likely to fall into the sea without causing harm to humans.