A Soviet -era spacecraft “likely to enter the Earth’s atmosphere again

Part of the Soviet -era spacecraft is likely to enter the Earth’s atmosphere again after being stuck in orbit for more than half a century, the European Space Agency reported.

Cosmos 482, which launched in 1972 on a mission in Venus, never came out of the orbit on Earth and instead invaded four pieces that have been touring the planet for more than five decades.

The EU Monitoring and Track Center (SST) said a fragment – which is thought to be Lander – “most likely” again entered the atmosphere around 06:16 GMT (07:16 BST) on Saturday.

It is unclear whether the object has fallen to the ground or burned into the atmosphere.

It is also unclear where exactly the object has entered the atmosphere.

Although there are many experts do not know about the re -entry of the site, 70% of the land is covered by the sea, so it is unlikely that it has caused significant damage.

“It is much more likely to win the lottery than to be affected by this piece of space debris,” says Stein Lemmens, a senior analyst at the European Space Agency.

The Kosmos 482’s Lander Capsule was built to survive the extreme heat and atmosphere pressure of Venus, which means that it had a healthy heat shield and a durable structure.

Therefore, experts believe that this may have experienced uncontrolled descent through the earth’s atmosphere.

The Kosmos 482 parachute system, originally designed to slow down Lander’s descent to Venus, is likely to be degraded after more than 50 years in space.

Mr Lemmens explained that “the re-entry of human-created objects in the Earth’s atmosphere appears quite often.” He said it was happening weekly for bigger spacecraft and daily for smaller ones.

Objects usually burn in the earth’s atmosphere before reaching the ground.

The Chinese booster of 5 million. entered the Indian Ocean again in 2022 and Space Station Tiangong-1 Mostly burned over the Pacific in 2018.

Kosmos 482 is now carefully tracked by international space agencies.

Mr Lemmens said the future spacecraft “must be designed in such a way that they can escape from the orbit safely, preferably by making controlled repeat action.”

This would allow precise projections for landing sites, reducing the risk of debris that influenced the settlements and protecting people and property, while “environmental impact management from space debris”.