A Soviet spacecraft is on course to hit the wrong planet 53 years late. Kosmos 482, a half-ton spacecraft that never made it to Venus in 1952, is expected to fall back to Earth this weekend, the AP reports. The European Space Agency said Friday that the probe is expected to reenter the atmosphere at 2:26am Eastern—give or take 4.35 hours. Built to land on the solar system's hottest planet, the titanium-covered spacecraft may survive its fiery, uncontrolled plunge through Earth's atmosphere. Space debris trackers said it could come down anywhere between 52 degrees north latitude and 52 degrees south, an area that covers most of the Earth's surface, reports Space.com.
Experts said it likely would come down over water, which covers most of the world, or a desolate region. The odds of it slamming into a populated area are "infinitesimally small," said University of Colorado Boulder scientist Marcin Pilinski. In a blog post last month, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said it would "have the usual one-in-several-thousand chance of hitting someone." The spacecraft, which is 3 feet across and weighs more than 1,000 pounds, "is dense but inert and has no nuclear materials," he said. "No need for major concern, but you wouldn't want it bashing you on the head."
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek estimated the impact speed at 150mph if the spacecraft remains intact. "It should be visible as a bright fireball when it reenters the atmosphere," David Williams, head of NASA's Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, told the Washington Post last week. If it can be recovered, he said, it could be a "unique scientific opportunity to examine the very long-term effects of the space environment (radiation, micrometeorites, solar wind particles) on a spacecraft." The Soviets launched Kosmos 482 in 1972, intending to send it to Venus to join other spacecraft in their Venera program. But a rocket malfunction left this one stuck in orbit around Earth until gravity tugged it down. (More space debris stories.)
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