A 500kg Soviet probe could crash in the coming hours on earth. Launched in order to explore the planet Venus, his interplanetary trip did not go as planned, far from it.
A Soviet probe launched in space in 1972, and orbit around the earth since then, will crash in several days, even in a few hours, reports the independent. The machine, with a total weight of 500 kilos, could dislocate when it entered the earth’s atmosphere. It should possibly fall back in an uncontrolled manner in an area still unknown at a speed of approximately 242 kilometers per hour. Information that is not reassuring, while the machine is dangerously close to the globe surface.
However, according to information collected by 20 minutes from several specialists, the fall of the probe from the orbit of the earth to the ground should be minimal, due to the important dislocation of the structure in the earthly atmosphere. The crash is estimated by specialists between Friday evening and Sunday. A fairly precise range which allows you to prepare for any possibility.
-However, the concerns relate to the crash site on terrestrial soil. “We cannot, for the moment, not assert with certainty when and where the module will come in,” explains in English a Dutch astronomer Marco Langbroek on his blog. The researcher, specialist in the question, assesses the date of return of the Cosmos 482 probe more specifically: on Saturday May 10, in the morning. However, a margin of uncertainty of around twenty hours is to be taken into account. This is why a wider fork – until Sunday – is also mentioned.
The United Kingdom and New Zealand cited
Built to withstand the high temperatures of Venus, or 500 degrees, the probe should not easily disintegrate: “Normally, an object of this size and this mass should disintegrate, because small objects, when they enter the atmosphere, undergo a lot of friction”, observes Miquel Souda, doctor of aerospace engineering at the University Polytechnique in Barcelona.
“But in this case, as is prepared to withstand the high temperatures and pressures of the Venusian atmosphere, it is very likely that it does not disintegrate and that it reaches the almost intact terrestrial surface”. The possible and estimated impact zones are somewhere between the north of the United Kingdom and southern New Zealand. There is a great probability that it crashes at sea.
