DEFUNCT SPACE LAB PLUNGES BACK TO EARTH

Beijing, April 2: A defunct Chinese space lab disintegrated under intense heat as it hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere Monday and plunged to a watery grave in the South Pacific, Chinese officials said. The Tiangong- 1 “mostly” burnt up above the vast ocean’s central region at 8: 15 am Beijing time ( 0015 GMT), China’s manned space engineering office said. There was no immediate confirmation of the final resting place of any remaining debris. “Most of the parts burnt up and disappeared,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters, adding that China kept the United Nations space agency informed about the situation. “According to my knowledge, we have not found any harm to the Earth’s surface.” Tiangong- 1 — or “Heavenly Palace” — was placed in orbit in September 2011, acting as a testing ground for China’s efforts to build its own space station by 2022, but ceased functioning in 2016. Space officials had promised the atmospheric disintegration of the 10.4meter- long ( 34 foot) craft would offer a “splendid” show akin to a meteor shower. But the remote location likely deprived stargazers of the spectacle. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the module zoomed over Pyongyang and the Japanese city of Kyoto during daylight hours, reducing the odds of glimpsing it before it hit the Pacific. “It would have been fun for people to see it but there will be other reentries,” McDowell said. “The good thing is that it doesn’t cause any damage when it comes down and that’s what we like.”