A little over a year ago, Chinese officials announced they had lost control of their very first space laboratory Tiangong 1, and that it would come crashing through the atmosphere in the next couple of years. In May, they specified their time window: Tiangong 1 would reenter Earth's atmosphere sometime between October 2017 and April 2018.
Well, it is October of 2017, and here's why you might want to look up.
Tiangong 1, which was launched into space in 2011, is a 8.5-ton, 34-foot-long hunk of metal. As its orbit rapidly decays, no one can steer it, and officials don't know when exactly it will reach Earth.
"Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won't know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it's going to come down," Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told The Guardian. "Not knowing when it's going to come down translates as not knowing where it's going to come down."
McDowell says most of the space station will burn up on reentry, but predicts some parts weighing up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) will make it to the surface. And even the smallest atmospheric change could bump the station to a different continent. (Controlled spacecraft are directed to a specific spot in the ocean, the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, when they descend.)
The chances any parts will endanger humans are slim. China told the United Nations it would closely monitor Tiangong 1's progress. This isn't the first man-made object to fall from the sky, and none have ever hurt people before. Plus, 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water. But wouldn't it be just our luck?
Tiangong 1 translates to "Heavenly Palace." I'll let you draw the metaphor.
