Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
NASA reports that its Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) has crashed to earth in a fiery reentry sometime between 11:23 P.M. EDT on Friday and 1:09 A.M. EDT on Saturday, but still doesnt know where it landed. Meanwhile, heres a video taken of an unconfirmed sighting of the satellites pieces, said to be spotted over Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Update:This video is fake, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, responding in a Twitter post: Okotoks video of #UARS is fake, reposted from user Fragmentus08 shot day before in Oklahoma City (of what?). Experts saw nil
Heres a second video, said to be shot from a backyard in Blaine, Washington and claiming to be the satellite, but this one looks to us and to many others like a Chinese lantern. However, the voices on the video are certainly convinced theyre witnessing a fiery reentry.
So far, NASA knows the 6.5-ton behemoth was passing over Canada and Africa as well as vast portions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, when it plunged to earth, but cant be certain about the precise reentry time and location.
NASA and the U.S. Air Forces Joint Space Operations Center said the satellite first began reentering the Earths atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, but thats not necessarily where it ended up, according to the Associated Press.
Although NASA says the bus-sized UARS spacecraft was mostly burned up on its way to Earth, theres been no definitive reports of sightings of any of the 26 pieces NASA predicted would result from a collision with the earths atmosphere.
Will this happen again? With older spacecraft such as the UARS which was released into orbit by the U.S. space shuttle in 1991, yes, but now NASA is able to control the reentry of more modern satellites, according to Reuters.
Given that most of our blue planet is covered with oceans, thats probably where most of it fell. Even though the satellite hit the earth roughly 9 hours before we wrote this post, we dont know where that satellite landed. Thats not stopping the Twitterverse from chattering about the satellite, where there are a few dubious claims of sightings, but mostly humorous comments about the satellites location and intentions.
Where do you think the satellite landed? Has anybody seen it?
Update: Heres another unconfirmed amateur video from Italy:
