There’s a one in 2,500 chance that a Nasa spacecraft weighing nearly 1,500kg will injure someone within the next few hours.
The US space agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is careening back to Earth as you read this after spending 22 years in space.
The Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit, predicts the hunk of metal will crash at 10.19am, give or take a couple of hours.
While the US Space Force predicted reentry for 9.42am.
Nasa estimates there’s a very slim chance that scraps of Swift will injure anyone – but for most people, the risk is zero.
Where will the Swift Observatory crash?
Swift’s orbit is angled at 20.6° to the Equator – a line stretching Earth’s midpoint.
It’s not yet clear exactly where Swift will crash, but it will be somewhere between 20.6° south latitude and 20.6° north latitude.
So space officials say anyone more than 1,420 miles above or below it probably won’t have a telescope falling on their heads today.
The observatory’s trajectory passes over swathes of Africa, Central and South America, Asia and Australia, the Aerospace Corporation says.
But this does include even larger stretches of the ocean, stresses Dr Alfredo Carpineti, an astrophysicist and author, to .
‘It will mostly burn in the atmosphere. Some surviving bits will fall within 21° of the equator.
What is the Nasa Swift Observatory?
Launched on November 20, 2004, the Swift was actually only meant to have a two-year-long stint in space.
Officials designed the instrument to observe gamma-ray bursts, the afterglow of some of the most violent explosions in the universe, such as two stars colliding.
These rays are a form of light but, unlike the light from your lamp or phone, they contain huge amounts of energy.
It wound up spending more than two decades circling about 370 miles above the surface before slowly falling back to Earth.
Nasa did try to save the one-of-a-kind telescope using a fridge-sized spacecraft launched from Kwajalein Atoll, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, only for it to run into bad weather and malfunction in July.
The agency flipped the kill switch for Swift last month, paving the way for it to be torn apart by the Earth’s atmosphere into a trail of flaming debris.
Swift’s end brings mixed feelings for Dr Carpineti.
‘It is very sad that Swift was not saved, but what a ride it has been,’ he says.
‘Just short of 22 years in space, even though it was planned to operate for just 2; over 7,000 papers coming from its observations!
‘And what incredible observations: 2,000 gamma-ray bursts, over 1,400 supernovae, stars being ripped by black holes, asteroids, and even interstellar comets!’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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