Tiangong-1 China Space Station will fall within 1 week

Tiangong 1
After a two-year wait, China's first Tiangong-1 space station will eventually break out of its orbit and into Earth's atmosphere within a week.

The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that the space station will re-enter Earth's atmosphere between March 30 and April 2. Most likely, the incident will happen on April 1st. After the space station falls, people no longer have to worry about it.


The fall of Tiangong-1 made people restless because China could no longer control the space station. That means, Chinese technicians can not activate the engine at the space station and make sure it falls in the ocean.

Tiangong-1 is also quite heavy. At its launch in 2011, the station weighed 8,506 kilograms, making it one of the gigantic objects that fell to Earth uncontrollably.

In addition, Tiangong-1 is also quite dense, which means although some of the stations will burn in the atmosphere, it is possible that the remainder of the station is still quite large when it lands on Earth.


Of course, the possibility of this station befall someone very small. Not only that, before, Earth has been hit by larger objects. According to Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at Harvard, Tiangong-1 is the 50th largest object ever to fall to Earth uncontrollably.

The area that may be where Tiangong-1 fell
The area that may be where Tiangong-1 fell. (Image: Aerospace Corporation)

Unfortunately, experts can not confirm exactly where Tiangong-1 will land. One thing is known today, the station will fall in the region between 43 degrees north latitude and 43 degrees south latitude, covering most of South America, Africa, and Australia as well as parts of Asia, Europe and North America.
 

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