Looking out for science news that will blow your mind? A recent update from NASA will leave you stunned. The space research organisation has suggested that a dead satellite is about to return to Earth this April and may crash in the days.
NASA recently issued a warning that an old American satellite - the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) - is set to fall to Earth after spending over 20 years in orbit. To the unversed, RHESSI was selected in October 1997 to be part of the sixth mission in the Small Explorer program and was launched on 5 February 2002. It was decommissioned on August 16, 2018.
When will RHESSI return to Earth and will the expected crash harm people? Media reports quote the US military to say that the satellite which was used to study Sun, would return to Earth at 9:30 pm EDT on Wednesday (April 20, 7:00 am Indian Standard Time), with an uncertainty of +/- 16 hours. It has been noted that the event would not lead to any danger. The risk of harm as suggested by NASA is approximately 1 in 2,467.
RHESSI's coming plunge is another reminder that Earth orbit is an increasingly crowded and dangerous place, reported Space.com while mentioning that over 30,000 pieces of orbital debris are currently being tracked by global space surveillance networks.
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