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SALT LAKE CITY — At the conclusion of a 1950's science fiction movie called "The Thing," a survivor of an alien attack warned Americans to "Keep watching the skies!" That's pretty good advice over the next couple of days as a defunct satellite the size of a school bus heads for a fiery descent into earth's atmosphere.
This time it's not so much a warning. According to NASA, the odds of someone being hurt somewhere on Earth are only 1 chance in 3,200. But if people watch the skies, there's a slight chance they may see a rare and exciting event.
"I mean it's just plain, flat spectacular," said astronomy buff Patrick Wiggins, who is credentialed as an ambassador for NASA in Utah. He has personally witnessed two similar events in the past. "This thing's breaking into pieces, and each of the pieces starts then glowing, and there's these trains of ionized material, and chunks coming off the back."
Utah, like most of the planet, is in the line of fire. The dying satellite will pass over the state roughly twice a day until it disintegrates.
Wednesday
- 9:56 p.m.
Thursday
- 5:37 a.m.
- 9:25 p.m.
Friday
- 5:04 a.m.
Should Utahns be worried? Probably not. The odds against a Utahn getting hit by space junk are, well, astronomical.
The debris could fall almost anywhere on the globe. Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is covered with water and much of the rest is uninhabited land so debris is not likely to crash down in anyone's backyard.
The best guess now is that the space junk will disintegrate in the atmosphere sometime Friday. NASA predicts about 26 pieces of metal will survive the fiery re-entry and hit the Earth. One chunk is expected to weigh several hundred pounds. At around 13,000 pounds, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) will be the biggest piece of space junk to fall out of the sky in 30 years.
Video captured by an amateur astronomer in France clearly shows the satellite tumbling in its decaying orbit. That's one reason it's hard for NASA to predict its last days and hours. "It's difficult to be precise when the object is not behaving," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist for NASA. "It's tumbling in ways that we can't control."
With only a miniscule chance anyone will be hurt, Wiggins plans to watch the skies and hope the event happens over Utah. If the satellite lasts for three more days, it will fly over Utah about six more times.
"If it happens to hit the atmosphere during one of those six few-minute windows, then we'll get to see it," Wiggins said. "But the chances of it, to be honest, are kind of small. But I'm going to watch anyway."
The satellite is speeding up as it gets closer to Earth, which means the timetable for its flights over Utah keep changing. Wiggins is keeping up to date on the schedule through a website called Heavens-Above.Com.
"I'm not hopeful," Wiggins said. "But, hey, if you don't look, you're not going to see it, even if it does happen."
Email:hollenhorst@ksl.com
