Posted on 09/22/2016 10:20:19 AM PDT by BenLurkin
“Like all other satellites, it is being tracked by the world-wide network of radar installations operated by the US Department of Defense,” Peat explained via email to Universe Today. “They make the orbital elements available to the public via the Space-Track web site and this is where we get the orbital data from in order to make our predictions.”
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If you want to watch for it yourself, Heavens-Above provides tracking information anywhere around the world. Just input your specific location and click on “Tiangong-1,” listed under “Satellites.” Heavens-Above (they also have an app) is great for being able to see satellites like the International Space Station and Hubble, as well as seeing astronomical objects like planets and asteroids. Heavens-Above also has an interactive sky chart.
But despite being able to track Tiangong-1, as well as knowing its location and orbit is not the same as being able to say exactly when and where it will fall to Earth.
“This is a notoriously difficult task,” Peat said and even a day before re-entry, the estimated re-entry point will still be uncertain by many thousands of kilometers. The Russian Mir space station was brought down in a controlled manner using its propulsion system to re-enter over the South Pacific, but Tiangong-1 is no longer functioning so the re-entry point cannot be influenced by ground controllers.”
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who also monitors objects in orbit, said via Twitter that Tiangong-1’s reentry could be anywhere between the latitudes of 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South, which is a rather large area on our planet and are the latitudes where a majority of Earth’s population resides. That’s not especially comforting, but remember, the odds are in your favor.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
It has a 70% chance of landing in the water................
This reminds me somewhat of the 1979 Skylab crash landing.
it will hit earth for sure... ironically landing in china would be a hoot.
I remember climbing on the top of my apartment building to get a better look at it on one of its last orbits before it burned up....................
I hear the Chinese as a safety precaution are issuing everybody in the world a hard hat
Well, that's because they're all SQUISHED! On a related note, there has never been a single complaint from anyone at Ground Zero of a nuclear explosion, either.
Beijing, we have a problem.
Pei-Ping.
Landing?
That was a pretty good series.
Started to fall apart towards the end.
No real conclusion or closure.
What did they expect to happen? This pile of space junk was Made in China.
I liked the series, but I think it got cancelled before it could tie up any loose ends.
The movie didn’t help any, either.
If you have a night vision scope look at the sky on a dark night. You can see satellites by the dozens you didn’t know were there.
Or landing on the future residence of BHO wouldn’t be bad either.
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