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| ROSAT Satellite |
If you recall it was just over 3 weeks ago that we had a U.S. decommissioned satellite, "UARS" (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite), crash to Earth.
UARS fell harmlessly into the southern Pacific Ocean last month despite a 1 in 3,200 chance of someone being struck.
"ROSAT" (short for "Röntgensatellit")
This time it's a German Satellite called "ROSAT" (short for "Röntgensatellit") that is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere between 21-23 October 2011.
With ROSAT, there is a 1 in 2,000 chance estimate that it could hit someone. This is a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA UARS satellite, however any one individual’s odds of being struck are 1-in-14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.
ROSAT orbits the earth every 90 minutes and according to the German Aerospace Centre, parts of the satellite, which is the size of a van, will burn up during re-entry but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons could hit the ground sometime between Friday and Monday.
Impact Zone Unknown
The German Aerospace Centre says that even though they do not know where it will crash down, all countries around the globe between 53-degrees north and 53-degrees south could possibly be affected. That pretty much includes much of the earth outside the poles.
As it nears the re-entry dates, scientists will be able to more accurately estimate exactly when it will land to a window of about 10 hours. Check out the links in the "Related Links of Interest" section below for continued coverage.
What to Listen For On Your Scanner
Monitoring your local police and fire channels in your area as you normally do would be the best bet.
Should the impact zone be determined to be over the U.S., there will most likely be advisories put out over police and fire channels in the impact zone alerting public safety personnel about the estimated debris and debris recovery procedure.
If you missed my UARS blog post, what you would hear over the scanner would be something similar to what was heard when the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart on re-entry back in February 1, 2003.
That said, check out Google's News Coverage on ROSAT for updated info on impact locations and keep your eyes on the sky and your ear on the scanner!
Related Links of Interest
- ROSAT Wiki
- Larger Photo of ROSAT Satellite
- ROSAT Live Tracking
- Google News: ROSAT
- NASA: ROSAT Information
- Danger From Above: Satellite Crashing to Earth This Week! (Previous Post)
-RF
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