BEIJING: China’s space lab, Tiangong-1, is expected to come crashing back to Earth in a fiery ball over the next 24 hours. It ceased functioning and went out of control in mid-2017.
Experts are tracking the space lab’s drop into Earth’s atmosphere to determine where it will hit and whether it will cause serious damage. It is expected to fall anywhere between
New Zealand and the middle-eastern US.
Chinese experts tried to allay fears, saying that the falling of the 40-foot-long Tiangong-1, which means “celestial palace”, would not be dangerous and that it would burn up in the atmosphere like a meteor.
Some scientists said the time window for its return had been narrowed to 12 hours and that it might fall by Monday morning. There is a high possibility of Tiangong-1 falling into the ocean.
“The majority of the module can be expected to burn up during re-entry heating, with the greatest probability being that any surviving fragments will fall into the sea,”
BBC quoted
Richard Crowther, the UK Space Agency’s chief engineer, as saying. Most of it would burn up before reaching Earth and only about 20-40% — about 1.5 to 3.5 tonnes of material — might survive to hit the surface, experts said.
