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失控卫星将撞向地球

2011-10-03来源:Sky News

The rule is what goes up must come down, but the trouble is nobody knows exactly where the six-ton NASA satellite will crash land. This white blob is the UARS probe as it spins out of control during its descent, the footage was taken by an astronomer last week as it passed 156 miles overhead in Northern France.

"Most satellites when they come down, they are smaller, they burn up, and no one is anyone the wiser. This one, though, because of its size, so a little more significance."

NASA said the chance of debris from this spacecraft actually hitting someone is remote 1 in 3200 to be precise.The satellite is about this big, most of it will break up as they reenter the earth atmosphere, but some components will stay intact, they could be up to the size of a fridge and weigh anything up to 300 pounds. And you wouldn't want more of those hurtling towards you at 240 miles an hour.

Here is where it could land, anywhere in the world, south of Alaska, to the bottom tip of south America, this covers the most inhabited areas on earth. It's been tracked by radar stations around the world, including New Yorkshire.

We've got some world-class analysts here, help working around clock as we do have the specialists already for practice to began working with radar. However, due to the size and shape of this object, it's impossible for anyone using any of the resource we have across the global to accurately predict where and exactly when the subject will be reaching.

Flight director Ron Spencer indicating that the time of closest approach has come and gone, no impact.

The satellite has caused a scare already. In 2010, it forced international space station into a collision avoiding maneuver. NASA will reassure us that in 50 years of space travel, no one has ever been hurt by falling debris. But cosmic junk is no rocket science, it’s a case of watch this space, literally.

Ashish Joshi, Sky News