Brace yourselves for crash. German scientists are warning of one more out-of-control satellite that is heading to Earth and is expected to make landfall by the end of the month. Scientists from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) say the 2.4 ton satellite, named ROSAT has drifted away from its orbit and will re-enter the atmosphere in the next little weeks. DLR has not been capable to communicate with the ROSAT since its last mission back in 1999. It has no force system to control it re-entry, so scientists will be unable to guide where it will land. The ROSAT was a built from a combined effort from the UK and the U.S. and had a mission of observe the stars. It launched out of Cape Canaveral in the U.S in June 1990.
The satellite made lots of invaluable discoveries in its 8 years of operation before finally shutting down for its last mission in February, 12, 1999. DLR now warns that although the satellite will break up into pieces when it re-enters the atmosphere these pieces which weighs a totality 1.6 tons could still cause damage if it hits an inhabited part of Earth. ROSAT's heat resistant mirror may live the fiery re-entry and falling debris may include the mirror's jagged shards. Experts are estimating the chance of a person being hit by the falling debris as one in 2000. This is slightly superior to previous estimates of one in 3200 chance of getting hit when NASA's higher Atmosphere Research Satellite crashed last month.
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