UARS is now officially off track! T-minus impact on earth. Make a guess where it will land!

Originally posted by Movhisattva

Originally posted by Whisper67
The Today Show just stated that your chance of getting hit by space debris today is: 1 in 3200.

I'm not liking those odds.

I believe they mean the chance of it hitting someone is 1 in 3200. You probably have to divide that by 7 billion to have the exact odds it hits you personally.
I might be mistaken.

The odds of it hitting you are 1 in 21 Trillion!

(i've only recently signed up to ATS and don't feel i'm "cool" enough yet to just write "2nd line")

My news only mentioned a couple times a few days a go and now when it is schedule to hit earth they say nothing? Confused?

Okay, I confess, I have not read all 34 pages of this thread.

So if this has been asked and answered please forgive me and direct me to the page and I will read it.

My question is ; why does the satellite curve? Why does it not just go in a line around the planet instead of curving?

I was watching and it was going up thru Canada and then curving over to the UK...
why not just circle the globe?
What makes it curve?

reply to post by alfa1


Oh i'm terribly sorry I assumed that because it says 'live real time satellite' on the tab, that it was live real-time.
My bad

Originally posted by djz3ro

Originally posted by Movhisattva

Originally posted by Whisper67
The Today Show just stated that your chance of getting hit by space debris today is: 1 in 3200.

I'm not liking those odds.

I believe they mean the chance of it hitting someone is 1 in 3200. You probably have to divide that by 7 billion to have the exact odds it hits you personally.
I might be mistaken.

The odds of it hitting you are 1 in 21 Trillion!

(i've only recently signed up to ATS and don't feel i'm "cool" enough yet to just write "2nd line")

They already said the odds were 1 in 3200. Um that is a huge difference.

What I find truly amazing is this. While I was in the Navy, the US managed to fire a missile from a destroyer that went 82 miles above earth, and obliterated a "dead" satelite moving at over 15,000 miles per hour, with sincere precision. Yet, there seems to be no concern nor effort to destory this thing before the possibility of it killing someone or destroying property. Something doesn't add up.

I'm betting on Colorado.

ya... why do sats curve. is it because of the north n south pole pulling on them or what?

Originally posted by MissPoovey

What makes it curve?

It's not actually curving.

The path appears to curve when drawn on a two dimentional map which is representing a sphere in reality.

If you were to make a ball out of paper, draw a straight line on it, then cut it open to lay it flat, you would see the line curve (although you would have gaps in the line caused by opened it out).

reply to post by steve95988


The satellites don't curve - it is because you are looking at a 2D map. If you pull up the orbit diagram on a 3D map (a globe) the go in a straight line around the earth. Satellites may have a minimal propulsion system to help correct altitude and/or orbit but does not store enough fuel to continuously change direction.

NASA has offered some reassuring factoids in their CNN article, NASA Not Sure Where Space Junk Will Come Down:

We're in no danger of having the entire huge satellite come crashing through the roof:

Most of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is made of aluminum and will burn up on re-entry, NASA said. Of the satellite's 6 tons, only about half a ton of it will make it back to Earth. The components that won't burn are made of stainless steel, titanium and beryllium. NASA has identified 26 pieces they expect to survive, ranging in size from around 10 pounds to hundreds of pounds.

...See? And you were worried!

As far as the tremendous speed making it difficult to duck, here's something to keep in mind:

Mark Matney of NASA's Orbital Debris team in Houston told CNN there's no way to know exactly where those pieces will come down. Where will satellite debris strike?

"Keep in mind, they won't be traveling at those high orbital velocities. As they hit the air they tend to slow down and travel, they're still traveling fast a few tens to hundreds of miles per hour but no longer those tremendous orbital velocities," he explained.

I don't know about you, but I feel much better now. BTW, given the impossibility of making any meaningful estimate of anything actually practical about this re-entry, why does NASA need an Orbital Debris Team?
And do you suppose they're hiring?

reply to post by My01Exploder


I agree. This entire thing just doesn't add up.

Not only that, but apparantly space junk this size falls about once a year, and they've never hyped it up like this. This makes me wonder if because this time it's actually going to hit somewhere.... or, maybe it's not a satellite???

And wth kind of odds are 1 in 3200 anyway? If 1 in 3200 people of the 7.5 billion people on earth got struck, then wouldn't that actually be like an astronomical amount of people? Over 2 million? I don't understand how they get 1 in 3200 yet in the same breath say that for one of us particularly is 1 in a billion or whatever.

For those asking the latest news and altitude I am using the link below (not sure how accurate it is but it works for me).


www.infosatellites.com...

The Satellite is current sweeping up from the south coast of Africa and is overhead Kenya. Altitude is 101.52


Below latest press report.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

It isn't curving?

I realize the map is 2D and the world is 3D, however when the sat. appears to curve around the horn of South America instead of going straight down to the south pole, then I have to say it looks like it is curving.

Originally posted by WarrioroftheRainbow
reply to post by My01Exploder

 

I agree. This entire thing just doesn't add up.

Not only that, but apparantly space junk this size falls about once a year, and they've never hyped it up like this. This makes me wonder if because this time it's actually going to hit somewhere.... or, maybe it's not a satellite???

And wth kind of odds are 1 in 3200 anyway? If 1 in 3200 people of the 7.5 billion people on earth got struck, then wouldn't that actually be like an astronomical amount of people? Over 2 million? I don't understand how they get 1 in 3200 yet in the same breath say that for one of us particularly is 1 in a billion or whatever.

Nobody is hyping it up apart from the people on ATS. In fact if you go look for news on google or elsewhere its not a headline, you will have to specificly search for it.

ATS makes you paranoid.

Got a question about the satellite.

I was watching the this tracking page and saw that the UARS had traveled over where I live. I'm hoping to try and catch a glimpse of it when I'm out tonight. So I'm trying to create a table of times of when it might be visible for me to see on this side of the world.

It is currently making about 16.4 revolutions per day. So I assume it will be at the same place on the map every ~1.5 hours? Is this correct?

Does this 'horizontal' speed change dramatically over time? I would like to maybe factor this in to my calculations, as I have no internet access while I'm out tonight and would like to have a rough estimate of where it would be.

If I missed an answer to this already, I apologise. Thanks

I'm guessing it will fall on one of Irans nuclear facilities

Funny thing here in Ireland. Two days ago a very large military helicopter flew in from the east over North county Dublin. The Irish army dont have helicopters this big. Here's a link to the fleet of choppers they have Irish Military .

This was an RAF chopper.

Then today on the news on Q102 radio they were reporting that the satellite was being tracked by Astronomy Ireland and the chairman was interviewed on the radio stating that they expected UARS to impact Ireland in the early hours of Saturday. They have a map tracking the satellite on the link.

Sky news has a report on their site and has an RAF Flight Lieutenant Mike Farrington stating they are monitoring UARS closely Sky News

So maybe i,m jumping to conclusions but it just piqued my curiosity, this small chain of events.
The arrival of a very large UK military chopper and the news i heard on the radio along with the Sky report.

This is the craft I and 3 other friends witnessed flying in to Ireland Merlin we are all certain this is the craft type.

I have also been tracking UARS on my iphone app and today it wont work.

Albert.

I'm guessing.....Alaska. Here's a youtube vid of a Northern Exposure episode where Rick is killed by a satellite. It happens just a minute or two into the vid, lol in a sick sort of way.

www.youtube.com...

If anyone could embed this I would appreciate it.

Originally posted by MissPoovey
It isn't curving?

I realize the map is 2D and the world is 3D, however when the sat. appears to curve around the horn of South America instead of going straight down to the south pole, then I have to say it looks like it is curving.

edit on 23-9-2011 by MissPoovey because: wrong continent

It only looks like it is curving.

Load Google earth.

Have the screen show the earth so you can see the entire globe (as a 2D circle on your screen).

Rotate the globe so that the tip of South America is centred in the circle that is the Earth in 2D.

Now draw an imaginary straight line from left to right, and see that it hits the tip of South Africa
Next, rotate the globe so that the tip of South America is at the bottom of the circle, and see how you have to draw a curved line to get to the same place - the tip of South Africa !

Hope that helps.