AFTER A 20-YEAR STAY IN SPACE, NASA’S DEAD SATELLITE IS COMING BACK CRASHING INTO THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE
Do you all remember the SPUTNIK 1 crash? How the whole world was so sure that it was over? Well, now time for another!
NASA’s satellite RHESSI which was sent into space on an important mission approximately 20 years ago, is finally coming back to Earth. Practically 21 years after its debut flight, NASA’s retired Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) spacecraft is now to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere.
2018 saw the 300-kg (600-pound) spacecraft’s decommissioning. The majority of the spacecraft is expected to burn up due to the rapid force of the atmosphere, but some parts of the satellite might survive and make a reentry, as per NASA’s reports. The Department of is keeping NASA updated about the crash.
RHESSI studied and watched flares from the sun and coronal mass ejections from 2002 until it was decommissioned in 2018, assisting NASA in “understanding the underlying physics of what caused the powerful bursts”.
Scientists can investigate the energetic particles in solar flares because of the spacecraft’s ability to record more than 100,000 X-ray events during the course of its mission. According to NASA, the imager aided researchers in figuring out the frequency, location, and movement of the particles, which enabled them to identify where the particles were being propelled.
NASA’s announcement on Monday stated that the Department of Defense believed that the RHESSI probe will make its return to the atmosphere of the Earth on Wednesday at approximately 9:30 p.m. ET, give or take 16 hours. The return could happen at 8:50 p.m. ET, give or take an hour, according to NASA’s update of that window on Wednesday evening.
NASA expects that the maximum of the spacecraft to burn up on its re-entry into the atmosphere, but some components are expected to make it through and hit Earth. The location of where it is going to crash on Earth is not revealed yet due to uncertainty, but as said by NASA the risk of it causing harm to anyone on Earth is really low.
NASA unveiled its planetary defense plan earlier this month to protect the globe. NASA has been investigating asteroids, comets, and other near-Earth objects (NEOs) that orbit the Sun and pass within thirty million miles of the orbit of our planet.
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