Cabo Cañaveral, Florida, USA (AP) – Soviet spaceship half a ton, which never reached Venus 53 years ago, I returned to Earth over the weekend.
Built to perch on the hottest planet of the solar system, the titanium covered spacecraft could survive its burning and uncontrolled fall through the Earth’s atmosphere, scheduled for Saturday. However, experts pointed out that it would probably fall on water – which covers most of the planet – or in a desolate region.
The chances of crashing against a populated area are “infinitesimally small,” said Marcin Pilinski, a scientist at Colorado University, Boulder Campus.
“Although we can anticipate that most of this object will not burn in the atmosphere during the re -entry, it could be seriously damaged in the impact,” Pilinski said in an email.
For Friday, all signs pointed to a re -entry on Saturday morning, east time of the United States, with a margin of several hours. Although spatial waste trackers around the world coincided in their forecasts, it is still too early to know exactly when and where the spacecraft called Kosmos 482 would fall. That uncertainty was due to the possible solar activity and the old age of the ship. It is expected that their parachutes no longer serve and that their batteries have been exhausted a long time ago.
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek estimated the impact speed in 242 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour), if the spacecraft remains intact.
The Soviets launched the Kosmos 482 in 1972, with the intention of sending it to Venus to join other spacecraft of their Venera program. But a rocket failure left this ship stranded in orbit around the earth. Gravity continued to attract it, and it was planned that it will eventually cause its fall.
In a spherical way, the spacecraft – 1 meter (3 feet) in diameter and more than 495 kilos (1,000 pounds) of weight – will be the last piece of the Kosmos 482 to fall from the sky. All other parties rushed to the planet within a decade.
Any rest that will belong to Russia, according to a United Nations treaty.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
