BERLIN — Pieces of a retired satellite hurtling toward the atmosphere could crash into Earth as early as Friday, the German Aerospace Center said Wednesday.
Scientists are no longer able to communicate with the dead German satellite ROSAT, which orbits Earth every 90 minutes, and experts are not sure exactly where pieces of it could land.
Parts of the satellite, which is the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry, but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons could crash into Earth sometime between Friday and Monday, center spokesman Andreas Schuetz said.
“All countries around the globe between 53 degrees north and 53 degrees south could possibly be affected,” he said. That vast swath of territory includes much of Earth outside the poles.
The 2.69-ton scientific satellite was launched in 1990 and retired in 1999 after being used for research on black holes and neutron stars and performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope. The largest single fragment of ROSAT that could hit Earth is the telescope’s heat-resistant mirror.
