bbc:
Goce was last observed at 22:42 GMT on Sunday as it passed 121km (75 miles) above Antarctica,
It has fuel and thrusters to direct its destructive dive towards the vast and uninhabited waters of the Southern Ocean, east of New Zealand.
The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee - the global forum on “space junk” - chose Goce as its special study project for 2013.
Goce geoid (Esa) Goce’s principal objective was to make maps of the variation in the pull of gravity across the Earth
This meant a large number of tracking and surveillance facilities around the world were activated to monitor the satellite’s descent to Earth.
More detailed information is therefore likely to emerge in the coming hours and days on exactly where and when any materials struck the surface of the planet.