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NEWS ABOUT: space junk

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Failed Russia Spacecraft Crashes in Pacific

Would-be Mars probe showers southern Pacific

(AP) - Russia's Defense Ministry says a failed probe designed to travel to a moon of Mars has crashed, showering debris over the southern Pacific, according to news reports. The ministry said the fragments fell today 775 miles west of Wellington Island. The Phobos Grunt was one of the heaviest and... More »

Russian Space Probe to Hit Earth in Hours

Failed Phobos-Grunt spacecraft will likely miss Russia, US

(AP) - A failed Russian probe designed to travel to a moon of Mars but stuck in Earth's orbit will come crashing down within hours, the Russian space agency said today. Roscosmos said the unmanned Phobos-Grunt will crash between 11:41am and 4:05pm EST. It could crash anywhere along the... More »

Mysterious 'Space Ball' Falls From Sky

Namibians say it's made from 'an alloy known to man'

(Newser) - Namibian authorities are scratching their heads over a strange metal ball that fell out of the sky, they reveal. The ball, which weighs about 13 pounds and is 14 inches in diameter, was found lying about 60 feet away from the 12-foot-wide crater it left in the ground when it... More »

Satellite Slammed Into Southeast Asia

...but we don't know quite where

(Newser) - The latest satellite en route to Earth has made its landing—trouble is, no one knows quite where it ended up. An American astrophysicist says Germany's ROSAT seems to have dropped over Southeast Asia after entering Earth's atmosphere late Saturday night. Though two major Chinese cities were in... More »

German Satellite to Hit Earth This Week

ROSAT re-entering over the weekend

(Newser) - The Germans now have a better idea of when and where their defunct ROSAT satellite will plummet to Earth . The county's aerospace officials believe that the dead space telescope will make an uncontrolled re-entry sometime between Friday and Tuesday, most likely on Saturday or Sunday. Its landing is expected... More »

Another Falling Satellite on Its Way

1.6 tons of space junk could land somewhere on Earth

(Newser) - Brace yourself: Another satellite is falling, and this time the chances are one in 2,000 that it’ll hit someone. A German satellite known as ROSAT is due to plummet around the end of October, and while a lot of it will disintegrate before returning to Earth, experts say... More »

NASA: Satellite Fell in Remote South Pacific

Scientists think UARS picked the perfect spot

(Newser) - Now that NASA's had time to crunch the numbers regarding last weekend's falling satellite , it has a pretty good idea of where it splashed down—in the middle of nowhere in the South Pacific. The dead UARS craft entered the atmosphere generally above American Samoa, according to the... More »

So Where Did Satellite Land? NASA May Never Know

Need more exact data to pinpoint where UARS and debris hit the Earth

(Newser) - NASA's just-crashed UARS satellite may have been the size of a bus and weighed 6 tons, but, because of its speed and uncertainty about the exact time it hit the Earth, scientists say they don't know exactly where their space junk crashed, reports the Chicago Tribune . "We... More »

Satellite Splashes Down Over Pacific

Dead UARS craft finally comes down

(Newser) - Your luck held: NASA's dead six-ton satellite came down without apparent harm somewhere over the Pacific between 11:23pm EDT and 1:09am, the agency says . The exact spot isn't yet known, but the UARS craft likely broke up along a 500-mile path, notes AP . Most of the... More »

See the Satellite That Could Fall on You

Amateur astronomer Thierry Legault took the images last Thursday

(Newser) - The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite won't hit Earth until tomorrow afternoon , but an amateur astronomer managed to capture images of it tumbling toward us last week. Thierry Legault used a camera attached to a 14-inch telescope to record UARS as it passed over northern France last Thursday, reports the... More »

With Satellite Set to Hit, World Uneasy

26 pieces of NASA spacecraft to likely reach Earth tomorrow

(Newser) - The 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is going to plummet to Earth tomorrow afternoon , and the fact that NASA can't say exactly where is making some people uneasy. Some 26 pieces of the satellite, ranging in size up to a few hundred pounds, are likely to survive re-entry... More »

5 Weird Examples of Space Junk Hitting Earth

Meanwhile, expect falling satellite next Friday

(Newser) - The 6-ton satellite about to fall on Earth is coming faster than expected, and NASA now thinks it will arrive next Friday, give or take a day, reports Space.com . NASA still isn't sure where the defunct UARS satellite will land, but it thinks the odds of it hurting... More »

NASA: Watch Out for Falling Satellite

Half-ton of metal on its way to Earth

(Newser) - We’ve heard that quantities of space junk are past the “tipping point” ; now NASA tells us pieces of a “dead” satellite will soon plummet to Earth. But don’t worry—there’s only a one-in-3,200 chance a chunk will hit somebody, the Telegraph reports. The Upper... More »

Space Junk Passes 'Tipping Point'

Report urges NASA to ramp up efforts quickly

(Newser) - Astronauts on the International Space Station had a close call with space debris in June, and things are only going to get worse from here on out, warns a new report. In fact, the amount of junk orbiting earth has now passed the "tipping point," says the National... More »

Space Station Will Plunge Into Pacific After 2020

Station won't be left to become space junk

(Newser) - The International Space Station's grave will be a watery one, not a cosmic one. The colossal orbiting outpost will be deliberately crashed into the Pacific Ocean when it reaches the end of its working life some time after 2020, AP reports. "It cannot be left in orbit, it'... More »

'Space Fence' to Track Cosmic Junk

Near misses underscore need for new system

(Newser) - As the space shuttle program draws to a close, engineers are focusing on a less glamorous phenomenon of the space age: cosmic junk. The US Air Force is working on a $3.5 billion "Space Fence" scanner to track the estimated 500,000 pieces of space debris bigger than... More »

NASA May Move Space Junk With Lasers

Idea isn't to destroy pieces, but to prevent more collisions

(Newser) - What to do about all that space junk floating around Earth? A team of NASA scientists has a novel way to at least help manage the mess, reports Wired : Use lasers to push pieces on collision courses away from one another. The idea is to prevent smash-ups that create even... More »

Coming Soon: Gas Station for Satellites

It will deliver fuel, perform repairs to keep them in orbit longer

(Newser) - What's being described by Space.com as the world's first "flying satellite gas station" is expected to launch in 2015. The Space Infrastructure Servicing vehicle, as Canada's MDA Corporation calls it, will zip around and refuel satellites to extend their lives, perform repairs, and use robotic arms to nudge... More »

Solar Sail to Clean Up Space Junk

'CubeSail' designed to drag orbiting debris to fiery reentry

(Newser) - British scientists have devised a way to get rid of some of the 5,000-plus tons of space trash orbiting the earth and endangering satellites and astronauts. The team's CubeSail—a plastic sail utilizing high atmospheric gases and solar radiation—is designed to drag dead rockets and satellites out of... More »

Mystery Object to Hurtle Past Earth Tonight

Shows small asteroids can be detected two days before hitting earth

(Newser) - Scientists aren't sure what exactly the small object whizzing toward earth is—it could be an asteroid or space junk—but they are confident that it will narrowly miss hitting our planet. The 33-foot-wide object known as 2010 AL30 will shave past earth today at a distance of 80,000... More »

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