US spy satellite hurtling towards Earth!

Posted on January 31, 2008
Filed Under news |

Many of you may remember feeling scared in 1979 when you heard that a satellite named “Skylab” was hurtling towards the earth. As a young boy, I was really scared that it might come crashing down on my home. Everyone and their dog, including my parents, their friends, relatives, neighbours were monitoring the situation. When Skylab finally came into Earths orbit, the debris fell into the Indian Oceanwith some of it falling over remote parts of Australia.

It’s deja vu all over again - an out of control US spy satellite the size of a school bus is hurtling towards Earth. Since 75% of the earth is water, the probability of the satellite falling into the ocean is higher than the probability of it falling over your home. Yet, it’s scary to think that there is a large object travelling towards earth at thousands of miles per hour and not much is known on where it could fall or what impacts it may have when the the hazardous material it contains (hydrazine) gets dispersed.

Besides the US spy satellite, there was a 2000 foot wide Asteroid (named Asteroid 2007) that passed close to the earth. How close you ask? About 1.4 times the distance between the earth and the moon. That seems so far away, right? In astronomical terms, that is probably arms length. Regardless, the event was a non-event - Thank God! About a hundred years back, there was an asteroid hit over Siberia which left a 800 square mile area scorched.

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