In the next few days, a big chunk of a Soviet-era spacecraft will come crashing back into Earth.
Kosmos 482 was bound for Venus in 1972 when it failed to escape Earth’s orbit. Bits of it have been doing loops around the planet ever since.
Scientists predict the 1,000-pound landing capsule will hit Earth on Saturday between 52 degrees North and 52 degrees South latitude, which encapsulates half of the Earth’s population, said John Crassidis, space junk expert at the University at Buffalo.
“I wouldn’t change your plans. 70% of the Earth is made out of water, so most likely it’s gonna land somewhere in water,” Crassidis said. “And I always like to say that you’ve got a much bigger chance of lightning striking you than being hit by something that’s coming down from space.”
Kosmos 482 was sent off on a mission to Venus when part of it fell back to Earth and burned up, Crassidis said.
“What’s left now is that 1,100-pound lander, and that’s mostly made out of titanium,” he said. “And unfortunately, that’s not gonna burn up through the atmosphere.”
Space junk can reach temperatures up to 2,900 degrees — but titanium melts at 3,1000 degrees, Crassidis said.
Newer projects, like the satellite Crassidis is building at the University of Buffalo, use materials like aluminum to avoid this problem.
Right now, scientists are tracking 40,000 objects in space the size of a softball or bigger, Crassidis said. But scientists are more concerned about the 1 million objects between 1 and 10 centimeters, which can travel as fast as 17,500 miles per hour.
“I like to use a car lane analogy. If you have two cars that are in the same lane, meaning they’re the same orbit, not a problem. There’s different kinds of orbits. You can have one going around the equator. You can have one going around the pole,” Crassidis said. “Now you’re at a T-bone intersection. Imagine two cars colliding at 17,500 miles per hour. That can be a very violent and that can cause more space debris.”
If humans don’t intervene in the next 50 to 70 years, Crassidis predicts the situation will escalate to Kessler syndrome, which means the chance of collision is so great it’s not worth sending up satellites.
“The issue is we can’t move around space like we can move around the Earth,” Crassidis said. “You’re fighting [Isaac] Newton and [Johannes] Kepler, you’re gonna lose it every time. So don’t create more space junk if we can avoid it.”
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Wilder Fleming produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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