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A defunct , 5,050 - hammer ( 2,290 kilograms ) satellite has tumbled uncontrollably back to Earth after spending three decades in space .
After slow falling to Earth for more than 12 years , theEuropean Space Agency ’s ( ESA ) ERS-2 satellite reentered Earth ’s air at 12:17 p.m. ET ( 5:17 p.m. GMT ) on Wednesday , Feb. 21 , burning up over a remote patch of the North Pacific Ocean roughly halfway between Alaska and Hawaii , harmonize to ESA . No harm to belongings has been reported , and it is ill-defined if any dust survived the fiery dip through the atmosphere .
Artist’s illustration of ESA’s ERS-2 satellite in Earth orbit.
The dead satellite — which studied Earth ’s clime from its launch in 1995 until it was draw back in 2011 — is one of hundreds of part of space debris that will fall back to Earth this year . Most bit of space junk that reenter Earth ’s atmosphere are pocket-size than 3.2 feet ( 1 meter ) across , harmonise to ESA ; however , even enceinte objects like ERS-2 personate virtually no risk to people or property on the ground .
" The risk associated with planet re - entry are very low,“ESA functionary wrotein a Feb. 15 update . Because most of Earth ’s open is covered in piddle or is otherwise uninhabited , the odds of getting hit with falling place junk are vanishingly slim ; those odds are about 10 million prison term smaller than the yearly risk of exposure of getting pip by lightning , ESA previously enounce .
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ERS-2 ’s journey back to Earth began with an intentional deorbiting maneuver in 2011 . The defunct orbiter fired its stay fuel to lower itself from its previous ALT of 488 miles ( 785 kilometers ) to 356 miles ( 573 kilometer ) above Earth , take it out of the route of operational satellites and increasing its chances of leaving eye socket .
This fall was slow at first , but in January of this year , it sped up dramatically , with the satellite fall at stop number above 6 miles ( 10 km ) per day .
In its blossom , ERS-2 was the most advance ground - reflection satellite ever launch by ESA . Packed with sensor to monitor our planet , it render scientists with crucial data on our thawing climate .
" It has provided us with new brainstorm on our planet , the alchemy of our atmosphere , the doings of our ocean , and the effects of humankind ’s activity on our environment — creating new opportunities for scientific inquiry and applications , " Mirko Albani , head of ESA ’s Heritage Space Programme , enjoin in a statement .
The ESA artificial satellite is just one of many deorbiting pieces of space debris that have made headlines in late years . Four ofChina ’s Long March 5B boosters ( the workhorse of the country ’s growing space program ) fell to Earth between 2020 and 2022 , raining dust down on the Ivory Coast , Borneo and the Indian Ocean . In December 2023 , anotherLong March booster clangoring - landed near a civilian ’s homein China ’s Guangxi region .
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And in 2021 and 2022 , debris from fallingSpaceXrockets smashed into a farm in Washington land andlanded on a sheep farmin Australia .
Space federal agency attempt to keep tabs on the more than 30,000 largest slice of this detritus , but many others are simply too diminished to supervise .
outer space junk is n’t just a problem when it hang on us , either . Researchers have found that the more than 9,300 tons ( 8,440 metrical slews ) of outer space objects orbitingEarth — including inoperative artificial satellite and chunks of spend Eruca vesicaria sativa stage — increase the overall smartness of the night sky by more than 10%over expectant parts of the planet , produce ambient light contamination that makes distant space phenomenon harder to detect . These object alsopose a terror to the International Space Stationand other crewed spacecraft .
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Scientists have propose multiple fashion of tidy up Earth ’s skies , such as gathering junk in nets , collecting it with clawed robots , orfiring a half - mile - long ( 0.8 km ) tetherfrom another ballistic capsule to seize it .
