Duck and Cover

The staff here at The Platz has been diligent covering the event that you should be fretting-over this weekend.  April Fool’s Day is just around the corner and this event couldn’t be more apropos. 

China’s first space station - Tiangong-1 - abandoned and out of control, is expected to drop out of orbit this weekend and there is a very high probability that big chunks of it are going to survive the fiery reentry and come crashing to earth.  

The European Space Agency (ESA) has been tracking the station and has predicted it will re-enter the atmosphere sometime between late today and late April 1 give or take 16 hours.  The US military's Joint Space Operations Center predicts an earlier re-entry at 5:52 p.m. PT Saturday with a margin of error of 14 hours. Nobody knows for sure where the 9.4-ton station will come down, other than somewhere between 43 degrees latitude north and 43 degrees latitude south.  That puts me in the path of the crash. 

Sure, the scientists will tell you that the odds of your noggin becoming the target of falling space junk are exceedingly low but I’m not taking any chances.  If you need me for any reason I’ll be lurking in my bunker.    

You can learn more about this event here.

Photos - Space.com