In 1972, the Soviet Union launched the Kosmos 482 Lander, a spacecraft designed to reach Venus and Earth on its surface. However, the ship never reached Venus. The rocket that launched it suffered an anomaly, hitting the probe in an elliptical orbit around the earth, where it has remained for more than 50 years.
That five decades in space could come to an end today. Kosmos 482 is expected to return to the atmosphere of the Earth and the possible clash somewhere on the planet’s surface. The probe consists of a 3.3 -feet wide titanium shell (1 meter wide) lined with thermal insulation, designed to resist the heat of entry to the atmosphere of Venus. The ship weighs around 1,190 pounds (495 kilograms).
It is still quite uncertain just where and when the ship will fall, Althegh is expected to enter around 1:54 am et (0554 GMT) on May 10, about nine hours, according to aerospace study corporations). According to the current tracks and the orbital inclination of the dead probe of 52 degrees, the re -entry of the ship could occur between 52 degrees of north latitude and 52 degrees to the south, an area that covers most of the surface of the earth.
However, Kosmos 482 resentment may not be as dangerous as other space garbage falls. “As the surface of the earth will probably reach as only an object, the risks involved are lower than, for example, those created by a reentry of the upper stage of Falcon 9, which shows objects of multiple meters in a large area,” wrote the Dutch satellite tracker Marco Langbroek in a blog blog that tracks the restart of Cosmos 482.
But there is no need to fear being beaten by the fallen probe, according to the laces. After all, 71% of the land surface is covered with water, and much of the Earth on the surface is depopulated. Most likely, the probe will land somewhere harmless.
“While the risk is not zero, any individual on Earth is much more likely to be beaten by a ray than to be injured by Cosmos 482”, according to the Aerospace Corporation. “If it remains intact to the surface, we project a risk or 0.4 in 10,000, which falls inside the current security threshold.”
Satellite trackers and astronomers have a cosmos 482 legs for years. In 2019, there were reports that the ship could fall within a year, which did not happen. Astrophotographer Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands has been capturing the probe in camera for a decade, and recently captured suggestion of images that his parachute could be out while surrounding the earth.
However, some experts have questioned that speculation. Langbroek writes that the ‘tail’ structure in Vandebergh photos is probably the result of “camera shake/telescope and atmospheric distortion”
Kosmos 482 was part of the historic Venera Exploration Program of Venus of the Soviet Union, which achieved the first probe on the planet’s surface on 1970 with Venera 7 ship, and then sent the first color images of the surface 13 Venus probe.
Keep up to date with the reentry of Cosmos 482 with the live blog of that or the Langbroke Sortrackcam framework.
