So like, there’s this car-sized piece of Soviet rocket that’s supposed to come crashing back down to Earth soon, after spending a whole 53 years just chilling up there in orbit. An astronomer told Sky News, “It’s a half-tonne thing falling out of the sky at a couple of hundred miles an hour. That’s going to hurt if it hits you.” Ouch.
Back in 1972, this rocket called Cosmos 482 was meant to head on over to Venus after it was launched from the USSR’s spaceport in what is now Kazakhstan. But things didn’t go as planned because the upper stage of the rocket, which was supposed to help it get out of orbit, didn’t work right. So basically, the upper stage was like, “Peace out, I’m not doing this anymore,” and left the probe just hanging out in orbit around Earth. Rude.
Some parts of the rocket came back into the Earth’s atmosphere in the 1980s, but there was this one chunk that decided to stick around in orbit. Everyone thought it was just some debris left behind from the spacecraft, you know, floating around aimlessly.
Years later, this dude named Mr. McDowell checked out the data and was like, “Wait a minute, this debris is still up there. It seems denser and not behaving like regular debris.” He then realized that it was actually the Venus entry capsule from Cosmos 482, sporting a heat shield tough enough to handle the intense atmosphere of Venus. Now, this heat-protected capsule is on its way back to Earth, set to make landfall around 10 May, according to astronomer Marco Langbroek.
Mr. McDowell mentioned that this capsule is about three feet across and weighs half a tonne. When it zooms into the atmosphere at super speed, all that energy turns into heat, creating a fiery ball of doom. By the time it hits the Earth, it’s only cruising at a couple of hundred miles an hour. Still, he warns, “It’s still a half-tonne thing falling out of the sky at a couple of hundred miles an hour. That’s gonna hurt if it hits you.” Yikes.
Scientists aren’t really sure where this thing is gonna land, but they’ve narrowed it down to somewhere between 51 degrees north and 51 degrees south. So if you’re a penguin, you’re probably safe. But if you live anywhere from Chile to Scotland, you might wanna watch out. Just saying.
Most of the planet is covered in water, and the capsule is about the size of a car, so the chances of it causing any harm are pretty low. But Mr. McDowell thinks this whole situation with Cosmos 482 is just a tiny preview of a much bigger problem. He said, “It’s getting really crowded up there in space, and we’re relying more and more on satellites for everything we do. I think it’s about time we start taking space junk cleanup seriously.”
So yeah, that’s the deal with this Soviet rocket chunk coming back to Earth. Stay safe out there, folks!
