If former forum member hawkerj96 is still visiting, please contact admin as we have a new member who wishes to contact you about John Hawke

Duck and Cover

Message
Author
PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Duck and Cover

#1 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Jan 05, 2022 6:04 pm

Out-of-control Russian rocket part set to enter Earth's atmosphere within 24 hours

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/05/world/ru ... index.html

(CNN)Space experts are tracking a Russian rocket part that is set to make an uncontrolled reentry into Earth's atmosphere within the next 24 hours.

The Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket was launched from the Plesetsk spaceport in Russia's northwestern Arkhangelsk region on Monday, December 27. The launch was testing a new upper rocket stage, known as the Persei booster, according to the state-run TAS news agency.
"It's safe to say that in the next 24 hours it will be down but where, nobody can say, because in the window of several hours it will do several revolutions around the globe," Holger Krag, the head of the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office, told CNN.
Most space debris burns up on reentry to Earth's atmosphere, but it's possible that larger parts could cause damage if they land in inhabited regions.

The Russian rocket part was traveling at 7.5 kilometers per second (4.7 miles per second), and its reentry latitude was likely to be between 63 degrees north and south of the equator, Krag said.
Risk level
While it was highly unlikely that it would cause damage or hurt anyone, "the risk is real and cannot be ignored," he said.
In May 2021, NASA lambasted China for its failure to "meet responsible standards" after debris from an out-of-control rocket used to launch China's space station plunged into the Indian Ocean.
The Russian rocket part is thought to be smaller than the Chinese debris, weighing around 4 tons without fuel, compared to around 20 tons for the Chinese Long March 5B rocket, said Krag.
The Chinese Long March rocket was one of the largest objects in recent memory to strike the Earth after falling out of orbit, following a 2018 incident in which a piece of a Chinese space lab broke up over the Pacific Ocean and the 2020 reentry of another Long March 5B rocket.

The Persei booster was about 10 meters (33 feet) long compared to 32-meter (105-foot) Chinese Long March 5B rocket, said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics - Harvard & Smithsonian. While it weighed less, it was carrying about 16 tons of propellant on board, he said.
The "total mass is about the same as the Chinese stage, but most of it is probably liquid and will burn up in the atmosphere, so the risk to the ground is significantly less. I think," said McDowell via email.
Original intentions
He added that the Russian rocket stage was not intended to reenter the Earth's atmosphere in this way.
"It was meant to end up in an orbit where it would stay for many thousands of years. The rocket failed to restart. The Chinese stage reentry was by DESIGN, they deliberately left it in a low orbit."
He said the rocket stage would reenter between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET Wednesday.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos told CNN the launch was operated by the Russian Ministry of Defence, which did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Best international practice for spent rocket parts or spacecraft at the end of their life span was typically to make a controlled reentry and fall to Earth in an uninhabited area -- usually a remote part of the Pacific Ocean, Krag said.
Krag added that, on average, 100 to 200 tons of space junk reenter the Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled way every year. Only one person is known to have been hit by space junk -- a woman named Lottie Williams in Texas in 1997. She lived to tell the tale.

PP

Boac
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17184
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:12 pm
Location: Here

Re: Duck and Cover

#2 Post by Boac » Wed Jan 05, 2022 7:14 pm

its reentry latitude was likely to be between 63 degrees north and south
Ah, good! That narrows it down a bit.

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#3 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Jan 05, 2022 7:16 pm

Summertime at the South Pole.
You could ride it out there.

PP

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#4 Post by PHXPhlyer » Thu Jan 06, 2022 2:38 am

Russian rocket stage makes uncontrolled entry into Earth's atmosphere

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/05/world/ru ... index.html

(CNN)An out-of-control Russian rocket stage has re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, according to the latest estimate from US Space Command, which has been tracking its descent.

The Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket was launched from the Plesetsk spaceport in Russia's northwestern Arkhangelsk region on Monday, December 27. The launch was testing a new upper rocket stage, known as the Persei booster, according to the state-run TAS news agency.
Most space debris burns up on reentry to Earth's atmosphere and poses an extremely minimal risk to humans, but it's possible that larger parts could cause damage if they landed in inhabited regions.
But on Wednesday, US Space Command — which had tracked the rocket booster during reentry — said the rocket reentered the Earth's atmosphere at 2:08 pm MST over the Southern Pacific Ocean. That's 4:08 pm ET.
It may, however, be impossible to determine exactly where the debris landed.

Earlier on Wednesday, the head of the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office, Holger Krag, said the Russian rocket part had been traveling at 7.5 kilometers per second (4.7 miles per second), and its reentry latitude was likely to be between 63 degrees north and south of the equator.
Risk level
While it was highly unlikely that the rocket would cause damage or hurt anyone, "the risk is real and cannot be ignored," Krag said.
In May 2021, NASA lambasted China for its failure to "meet responsible standards" after debris from an out-of-control rocket used to launch China's space station plunged into the Indian Ocean.
The Russian rocket part is thought to be smaller than the Chinese debris, weighing around 4 tons without fuel, compared to around 20 tons for the Chinese Long March 5B rocket, said Krag.
The Chinese Long March rocket was one of the largest objects in recent memory to strike the Earth after falling out of orbit, following a 2018 incident in which a piece of a Chinese space lab broke up over the Pacific Ocean and the 2020 reentry of another Long March 5B rocket.

The Persei booster was about 10 meters (33 feet) long compared to 32-meter (105-foot) Chinese Long March 5B rocket, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics - Harvard & Smithsonian. While it weighed less, it was carrying about 16 tons of propellant on board, he said.
The "total mass is about the same as the Chinese stage, but most of it is probably liquid and will burn up in the atmosphere, so the risk to the ground is significantly less. I think," said McDowell via email.
Original intentions
He added that the Russian rocket stage was not intended to reenter the Earth's atmosphere in this way.
"It was meant to end up in an orbit where it would stay for many thousands of years. The rocket failed to restart. The Chinese stage reentry was by DESIGN, they deliberately left it in a low orbit," he said.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos told CNN the launch was operated by the Russian Ministry of Defence, which did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Best international practice for spent rocket parts or spacecraft at the end of their life span was typically to make a controlled reentry and fall to Earth in an uninhabited area -- usually a remote part of the Pacific Ocean, Krag said.
Krag added that, on average, 100 to 200 tons of space junk reenter the Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled way every year. Only one person is known to have been hit by space junk -- a woman named Lottie Williams in Texas in 1997. She was unscathed and lived to tell the tale.

Waiting to hear from our Southern Hemisphere correspondents. :-ss

PP

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#5 Post by PHXPhlyer » Tue Jul 26, 2022 5:48 pm

Debris from massive Chinese booster rocket could fall to Earth early next week

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/26/china/ch ... index.html

Hong Kong
CNN

The remnants of the massive Chinese rocket that delivered a new module to its space station on Monday are expected to fall to Earth early next week, according to US Space Command, which is tracking the rocket’s trajectory.

The 23-ton Long March 5B rocket which carried the Wentian laboratory module, took off from Hainan Island at 2:22 p.m. local time Sunday, July 24, and the module successfully docked with China’s orbital outpost.

Its job completed, the rocket has gone into an uncontrolled descent toward Earth’s atmosphere and it’s not clear where it will land. The uncontrolled descent marks the third time that the country has been accused of not properly handling space debris from its rocket stage.

“It’s a 20-tonne metal object. Although it will break up as it enters the atmosphere, numerous pieces – some of them quite large – will reach the surface,” said Michael Byers, a professor at the University of British Columbia and author of a recent study on the risk of casualties from space debris.

Space debris poses an extremely minimal risk to humans, Byers explained, but it’s possible that larger parts could cause damage if it lands in inhabited regions. Byers said that due to the increase in space junk, those small chances are becoming more likely, especially in the global south, according to the research published in the Nature Astronomy journal, with rocket bodies being approximately three times more likely to land at the latitudes of Jakarta, Dhaka and Lagos than those of New York, Beijing or Moscow.

“This risk is entirely avoidable since technologies and mission designs now exist that can provide controlled reentries (usually into remote areas of oceans) instead of uncontrolled and therefore entire random ones,” he said via email.

Holger Krag, the head of the European Space Agency’s Space Debris Office, said international best practice was to conduct a controlled reentry, targeting a remote part of the ocean, whenever the casualty risk is too high.

He added that the re-entry zone for the rocket was geographically limited to between the latitudes of 41 degrees south and 41 degrees north of the equator.

The US Space Command said it will track the Chinese rocket’s fall back to Earth, according to a spokesperson.

Based on varying atmospheric conditions, the exact entry point of rocket stage into Earth’s atmosphere “cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry,” the spokesperson said, but it is estimated to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere around August 1.

The 18th Space Defense Squadron, part of the US military that tracks reentries, will also provide daily updates on its location.

CNN has reached out to the China Manned Space Agency for comment.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that space debris weighing more than 2.2 tons is typically brought down to a specific location on its first orbit of Earth.

“The point is that things that big are normally not put in orbit without an active control system,”he said.

With “no active control system, and no re-startable engine to boost it back down to Earth… it just tumbles along in orbit and eventually burns up due to friction with the atmosphere,” McDowell told CNN.


Chinese rocket debris has crashed into Earth. It's not the first time.
China was heavily criticized last year for its handling of space debris after it launched another module on a similar rocket. Its remnants plunged into the Indian Ocean near the Maldives 10 days after the launch.

NASA said China failed to “meet responsible standards.”

“Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson at the time.

China responded to criticisms by blaming the US for “hyping up fears” over the rocket reentry and accused US scientists and NASA of “acting against their conscience” and being “anti-intellectual.”

In 2020, a Chinese rocket core – which weighed nearly 20 tons – made an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, passing directly over Los Angeles and Central Park in New York City before eventually diving into the Atlantic Ocean.

Space junk such as old satellites reenter the Earth’s atmosphere on a daily basis, although most of it goes unnoticed because it burns up long before it can hit the ground.

It’s only larger space debris – such as spacecraft and rocket parts – that pose a very small risk to humans and infrastructure on the ground.

PP

User avatar
Undried Plum
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 7308
Joined: Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:45 pm
Location: 56°N 4°W

Re: Duck and Cover

#6 Post by Undried Plum » Tue Jul 26, 2022 11:51 pm

PHXPhlyer wrote:
Tue Jul 26, 2022 5:48 pm
accused US scientists and NASA of “acting against their conscience” and being “anti-intellectual.”
=))

Didn't the US Spacelab whack a Strine golf course? A hole in one, so to speak.

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#7 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sun Jul 31, 2022 2:23 am

Debris from uncontrolled, 23-ton Chinese rocket falls to Earth

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/chine ... -aerospace#

A massive Chinese booster rocket fell uncontrolled to Earth on Saturday and landed over the Indian Ocean, according to U.S. Space Command.

The booster is part of the 23-ton Long March 5B-Y3 rocket — China’s most powerful — that carried the Wentian module to China’s orbiting space station, aboard which three astronauts currently reside. China decided not to guide the booster back through the atmosphere.

A Twitter user in Kuching, Malaysia posted video of the debris soaring through the sky:


Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit space research organization, predicted the booster would hit earth around 1:08 p.m. Eastern time, give or take an hour.

According to The New York Times, you have a better chance of winning the Mega Millions lottery than being struck by the falling space debris, but space debris experts told The Times the minimal risk is still higher than they’d like.

"This is a real concern," space debris expert Ted Muelhaupt said. "The Chinese shouldn’t do this."

Aerospace Corporation notes that over 88 percent of the world’s population lives under the reentry's potential debris footprint.


"A reentry of this size will not burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the general rule of thumb is that 20–40 percent of the mass of a large object will reach the ground," the organization said on its website.

China’s space program is run by the ruling Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, and has largely proceeded with the space station program without other nations’ assistance. The U.S. excluded China from the International Space Station because of its military ties.

China has allowed rocket stages to fall back to Earth on their own at least twice before, and was accused by NASA last year of "failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris" after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean.



China also drew heavy criticism after using a missile to destroy one of its defunct weather satellites in 2007, creating a massive debris field.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Wednesday rejected such concerns.

"Since the development stage of the space engineering program, China has taken into consideration the debris mitigation and return from orbit into atmosphere of missions involving rocket carriers and satellite sent into orbit," Zhao said at a daily briefing Wednesday.

"It is understood that this type of rocket adopts a special technical design that most of the components will be burnt up and destroyed during the reentry process," Zhao said. "The possibility of causing damage to aviation activities or on the ground is extremely low."

PP

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#8 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sun Jul 31, 2022 4:12 pm

NASA criticizes China after rocket makes uncontrolled return to Earth
“You’re dropping the equivalent of a couple of cars worth of material over a very large area,” Ted Muelhaupt, an aerospace consultant, told NBC News.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nasa ... -rcna40824

China has been criticized for disregarding safety standards after the remnants of a rocket plunged through Earth’s atmosphere and into the sea off the Philippines Saturday.

Beijing did not share the “specific trajectory” of the Long March 5B rocket’s fall, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said on Twitter.

“All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance to allow, reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property,” Nelson wrote.

“Doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensure the safety of people here on Earth,” he added.

The Long March 5B, China’s most powerful rocket, launched on July 24. It arrived at the Chinese space station Tianhe the following day carrying a new laboratory module for scientific experiments.

Debris from the rocket, which stood 10 stories high and weighed almost 23 tons, was traveling up to 17,000 miles per hour before it crashed into the Philippine Sea at 12:55 a.m local time (12:55 p.m. ET).

The China Manned Space Agency reported that most of the rocket burned up after entering the atmosphere. The agency said earlier that the booster would be allowed to fall unguided.

The announcement gave no details of whether remaining debris fell on land or sea but said the “landing area” was at 119 degrees east longitude and 9.1 degrees north latitude. That is in waters south-east of the Philippine city of Puerto Princesa, on the island of Palawan.

There was no immediate word from Philippine authorities about whether anyone on the ground was affected.

“You’re dropping the equivalent of a couple of cars worth of material over a very large area,” Ted Muelhaupt, an aerospace consultant, told NBC News.

“It’s more than 10 times the accepted standards for risks that the U.S. uses,” said Muelhaupt, a consultant for the Aerospace Corporation, a U.S. nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center in El Segundo, California.

“It’s something that people can choose not to do,” he said, adding that the industry standard is to deliberately bring large objects down to safe locations away from people.

“People are watching, people are worried people were getting calls, “is this going to hit my house? That kind of reaction to the uncertainty of an event like this is its own cost,” he said.

Before the landing, China’s Foreign Ministry said the risk to the public was very low and that most of the rocket would burn up on re-entry.

Overnight videos appeared to show pieces of the rocket streaking through sky over Malaysia as the debris re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.

This is not the first time China has let a rocket free fall back toward Earth. Last May, another uncontrolled Chinese rocket booster dropped from the sky and landed in the Indian Ocean.

China plans to send another lab to its space station in October.

PP

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#9 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:58 pm

Nearly 40-year-old NASA satellite to fall from sky with 'low threat'

https://www.abc15.com/news/national/nea ... low-threat

NASA said on Friday that wreckage falling to Earth from a nearly 40-year-old satellite in space would present a "very low" risk to humans on our planet this weekend.

The satellite is 38-years-old and weights 5,400 pounds, and is expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, NASA said.

Some parts of the satellite, though, are expected to survive the fall.

The satellite is expected to fall to Earth on Sunday night, the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed.

NASA said the odds of injury from debris falling from the sky is around 1-in-9,400.

The satellite was launched from the shuttle Challenger in 1984 and is called the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, the Associated Press reported.

PP

TheGreenAnger
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 3286
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:40 pm
Location: Unfashionable end of the Western Spiral

Re: Duck and Cover

#10 Post by TheGreenAnger » Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:22 pm

PHXPhlyer wrote:
Sat Jan 07, 2023 11:58 pm
Nearly 40-year-old NASA satellite to fall from sky with 'low threat'

https://www.abc15.com/news/national/nea ... low-threat

NASA said on Friday that wreckage falling to Earth from a nearly 40-year-old satellite in space would present a "very low" risk to humans on our planet this weekend.

The satellite is 38-years-old and weights 5,400 pounds, and is expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, NASA said.

Some parts of the satellite, though, are expected to survive the fall.

The satellite is expected to fall to Earth on Sunday night, the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed.

NASA said the odds of injury from debris falling from the sky is around 1-in-9,400.

The satellite was launched from the shuttle Challenger in 1984 and is called the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, the Associated Press reported.

PP
The 1 in 9400 statistic is completely spurious, not least because they don't know how many pieces will rain down upon the earth, and are taking a broad guess as to where the unknown number of pieces will come down. Damned lies and statistics again.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

G-CPTN
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 7582
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 11:22 pm
Location: Tynedale
Gender:
Age: 79

Re: Duck and Cover

#11 Post by G-CPTN » Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:32 pm

What does the statistic refer to?

Flooding expectation is based on likelihood of occurrence within a given time period such as repeat within 50 or 100 years.

User avatar
Fox3WheresMyBanana
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 12890
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
Location: Great White North
Gender:
Age: 61

Re: Duck and Cover

#12 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sun Jan 08, 2023 8:37 pm

The statistic is obtained by considering the earth's area under the satellite's orbit (57N to 57S), the size of the satellite (it's relatively a biggie, about 15 ft x 11 ft), and assuming that the Earth's population of about 8 billion people is roughly evenly distributed within this area of potential impact. The assumption is reasonable given how few people live north of 57N or south of 57S.
This yields a chance of one person being killed as 1 in 9,400.
I have checked their calculations.
However, if you want the chance it will kill you personally, then that's 1 in (9,400x8 billion). Unless, of course, you are unlucky ;)))
If you are lucky and named Woody, it will stay up a bit longer and hit Goodison Park at 11am next Saturday :D

If the satellite does break up, then some pieces could burn up, but against that the area covered by the pieces will be much larger than the intact satellite. I don't know whether they have some data from previous impacts indicating that the balance of break up vs burn-up yields about the same area as the intact satellite.

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#13 Post by PHXPhlyer » Mon Jan 09, 2023 4:18 pm

Dead NASA satellite returns to Earth after 38 years

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/world/na ... index.html

The US Department of Defense confirmed that ERBS reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday at 11:04 p.m. ET over the Bering Sea, according to a statement from NASA.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether parts of the satellite survived re-entry. Most of the satellite was expected to burn up as it moved through the atmosphere. NASA had calculated that the risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth was very low – approximately 1 in 9,400.

PP

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#14 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:39 pm

‘City killer’ asteroid to pass between Earth and moon’s orbits this weekend

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/world/ci ... index.html

On hearing the words “city killer” and “asteroid” in the same sentence, you’d be forgiven for thinking something bad is about to happen.

But not to fear. Although an asteroid with the potential to cause significant damage if it hit a populated area is coming somewhat unusually close to our planet this weekend, it is on course to pass harmlessly between the orbits of Earth and the moon.

On Saturday evening, the asteroid 2023 DZ2 will fly by at a distance of 105,633 miles (170,000 kilometers). The moon, by comparison, is around 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away from Earth.

Referred to as “city killer,” the asteroid — which measures between 40 and 100 meters (131 to 328 feet) in size — will do nothing of the sort. But the flyby is still notable, experts say.

“What’s unusual about this object is that this is rather rare, that an object of this size passes so close to Earth. That happens about once every 10 years,” Richard Moissl, ESA head of the Planetary Defence Office, told CNN Friday.

“But this is a once in a decade opportunity to get some nice close-up measurements in a relatively large body that is relatively easy to measure to that effect,” he said.

Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them to within 120 million miles of the sun, and this means they can “circulate through the Earth’s orbital neighborhood,” according to NASA.

Experts will light the 2023 DZ2 asteroid up with radar, and use this to get more precise measurements for the object, Moissl added.

The ‘city killer’ label
Moissl said that the phrase “city killer” gets bandied around by experts in reference to two known asteroid impacts.

During the Tunguska event of 1908, an asteroid “sent a shockwave down and flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest” in Siberia, Moissl said. Also, some 50,000 years ago, an iron asteroid hit what is today Arizona, between Flagstaff and Winslow on the Colorado Plateau, creating a crater 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometers) across and about 600 feet (180 meters) deep.

When space rocks enter the Earth’s orbit and hit land, “if they happen in uninhabited areas, then [it’s] not much of a concern,” Moissl said.

“If we ever find one of the sites where we see this will impact Earth, the first step is to find out where it will hit Earth because if it’s in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the desert, it’s not a big deal. We just need to ensure that there is no air traffic or no people in the area,” he added.

“That’s where the [term] ‘city killer’ comes from. If such an object would be going down directly over a city, this would be a problem: The whole city would likely be heavily damaged, and should be evacuated.

“City killer is a nice slogan. It’s not a bad description. That’s why we didn’t completely throw it out of the window. Because it says in two words: This is dangerous on the level of being capable of destroying the city,” he explained.

However, that’s not what’s happening with 2023 DZ2. The asteroid, which is in a heliocentric orbit, meaning it is in an orbit and ellipse around the sun, will “continue to go round and round the sun,” he said.

There are currently more than 1,450 near-Earth objects on the “risk list,” Moissl said, and they are added whenever there is “the slightest possibility that it might impact [Earth] over the next 100 years.”

“These objects are usually then observed quite a lot. And the measurements are refined,” he added.

PP

Boac
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 17184
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:12 pm
Location: Here

Re: Duck and Cover

#15 Post by Boac » Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:56 pm

We should be able to see if anyone waves as they pass by................... :))

User avatar
Fox3WheresMyBanana
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 12890
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
Location: Great White North
Gender:
Age: 61

Re: Duck and Cover

#16 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:03 pm

Last time I checked (about 5 years ago), about half the city-killer and larger NEOs were first detected after they had passed Earth, not before.
So, there's a 50% chance that we will know nothing about the first to one actually destroy a city until it happens.
NASA does not like people to know this.

Karearea
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 4723
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:47 am
Location: The South Island, New Zealand

Re: Duck and Cover

#17 Post by Karearea » Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:30 pm

As long as nobody fiddles with it and starts something they can't finish...
"And to think that it's the same dear old Moon..."

User avatar
OFSO
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 18563
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:39 pm
Location: Teddington UK and Roses Catalunia
Gender:
Age: 80

Re: Duck and Cover

#18 Post by OFSO » Wed Mar 29, 2023 11:58 am

Most agencies don't. I don't want black drones hovering over my house, or I'd recount the way in which photographs (for example) having passed over my desk subsequently mysteriously disapeared during my time at the Agency.

Really folks, all you sceptics out there who reject the idea of UFOS and the like don't know the half of it....probably better that way.

PHXPhlyer
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 8169
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 2:56 pm
Location: PHX
Gender:
Age: 69

Re: Duck and Cover

#19 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Apr 19, 2023 12:55 am

Old NASA satellite descending to earth poses ‘low’ risk of danger

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/old-n ... isk-danger#

An old NASA satellite is expected to fall to Earth this week, but experts tracking the spacecraft say chances are low it will pose any danger.

The defunct science satellite known as Rhessi will plummet through the atmosphere Wednesday night, according to NASA and the Defense Department.
NASA said Tuesday that the reentry location is not being disclosed, given lingering uncertainty over when and where it might go down. Most of the 660-pound (300-kilogram) satellite should burn up upon return, but some parts are expected to survive.

The space agency said in a statement the risk of anyone on Earth being harmed by plunging satellite pieces is "low" — about 1-in-2,467.

Rhessi — short for the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager — rocketed into orbit in 2002 to study the sun.

Before being shut down in 2018 because of communication problems, the satellite observed solar flares as well as coronal mass ejections from the sun. It captured images in high-energy X-rays and gamma rays, recording more than 100,000 solar events.

PP

User avatar
Fox3WheresMyBanana
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 12890
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
Location: Great White North
Gender:
Age: 61

Re: Duck and Cover

#20 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Apr 19, 2023 10:16 pm

Right over Kyiv!

How's that for wacky?!



Air Raid sirens all going off!!

Apparently they knew what it was, but sounded the sirens so people wouldn't be exposed to any possible debris.
Kinda fortunate that it was over one of the few cities in the world where people would take cover immediately.

Post Reply