A Soviet spacecraft designed to land on Venus in the 1970s is expected to return to Earth.
According to space debris monitoring experts, it is too early to draw conclusions about where exactly the half-ton metal structure might land and what part of it might survive re-entry into the atmosphere.
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek predicts the failed spacecraft will re-enter the atmosphere around May 10. He believes it will hit the atmosphere at 150 miles per hour if it remains intact.
“While this may be risky, we shouldn't be overly concerned,” Mr. Langbroek said in an email.
The object is small enough that even if it does not collapse, “the risk is similar to that of a random meteorite strike, which happens several times a year. The likelihood of being struck by lightning in your lifetime is higher,” he added.
Given the low probability of the spacecraft colliding with someone or something, he stressed that “it is impossible to completely rule it out.”
The Soviet Union launched a craft known as Cosmos 482 in 1972 as part of a Venus exploration program. However, it never reached orbit due to a rocket failure.
The main part of the craft disintegrated over the next decade. However, Mr. Langbroek and other experts believe that the landing capsule itself — a round object about 3 feet in diameter — has continued to orbit the Earth in a highly elliptical orbit for the past 53 years, gradually losing altitude.
There is a possibility that a spacecraft weighing more than 1,000 pounds (about 500 kg) could survive reentry.
It was designed to withstand its descent through Venus's thick carbon dioxide atmosphere, said Mr Langbroek of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Experts doubt the functionality of the parachute system after so many years. The heat shield may also fail after a long stay in orbit.
Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics wrote in a letter that it would have been preferable if the heat shield had failed, causing the craft to burn up on reentry.
However, if the heat shield survives, “it will reenter the atmosphere intact and a half-ton metal object will fall from the sky.”
The spacecraft can enter the atmosphere anywhere between 51.7 degrees north and south latitude, from London and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, to Cape Horn in South America.
However, since most of the planet is covered in water, “it is very likely that it will actually fall into some ocean,” Mr Langbroek added.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
