PEKING 'DUCK!'
NY along Chinese station crash course
Keep one eye on the skies this weekend — you could see an outof-control Chinese space station hurtling toward Earth at more than 17,000 mph.
The 9.5-ton hunk of space junk was still chugging along Thursday outside Earth’s atmosphere, with experts predicting impact around Easter Sunday.
The European Space Agency (ESA) says the odds of being struck by the Tiangong-1 are less than 1 in 300 trillion, but that’s not easing Earthlings’ minds.
“So there is this Chinese satellite that’s going to be falling and I’m in the ‘ dangerous’ zone. Wonderful,” tweeted one worrywart.
Another Twitter user wrote, “I’ll never win Mega Millions but I’m sure it will be me that the Chinese space station hits. #Justmyluck.”
Space expert John Logsdon, of George Washington University, told CBS News that while the odds of getting hit by debris are “very slim,” they are “not zero.”
Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011 as a docking station for other craft and a first step for China to establish a fully functional space station.
Sci-fi fans might recognize the name “Tiangong” because that was the station in which Sandra Bullock’s astronaut character took refuge at one point in the 2013 “stranded in space” flick “Gravity.”
Many believe the real-life wayward station will most likely splash in an ocean, though there’s still a chance it makes landfall between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south latitudes nearer the equator. This includes the US, and more specifically, New York City.
The station has been captured in several images over the past few days as it makes its descent, including an incredible two-second exposure showing the giant object reflecting the sun. Tiangong-1 is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere between Saturday and Sunday.
The gleaming Tiangong-1 was roughly 137 miles above Earth Wednesday when it was photographed, according to Space.com.
That altitude is a bit more than half that of the International Space Station, which averages 248 miles above the globe.
Tiangong-1’s orbit is decaying and most of it is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, but experts say some parts may survive the inferno and hit Earth.
In the unlikely event that space junk hits anyone, China would be liable for any damage. Holger Krag, head of the Space Debris Office at the ESA, based that assessment on the Liability Convention, which was reached by the UN General Assembly in 1971.