Alarm in China: Space station will fall unchecked on Earth

Out of control of the Earth, eight-and-a-half-ton China's space station, Tiangong-1, is headed and is expected to crash within a few months on its surface.

The ten-meter long station, which means Rainbow Palace, was launched in 2011 as part of an ambitious program aimed at making China a space superpower. It was used for manned and non-missions and was visited in 2012 by China's first woman astronaut, Liu Yang.

In 2016, astronomers noticed that the station is moving unnecessarily and out of control on the way to Earth, but for a long time Beijing kept a silent fish until it confirmed that it had lost control. The Chinese Space Agency even informed the United Nations that it expects the fall of Tiangong-1 somewhere between October 2017 and April 2018.

Since then, his orbit has brought him ever closer to the Earth, under 300 kilometers, and falls ever faster.

Although most of the station is expected to burn in the air, some of it can weigh up to 100 pounds when it crashes on the Earth's surface, according to estimates by Harvard University's famed astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.

Unknown where and when exactly will fall o Tiangong-1

The probability of the station dropping into a residential area is considered small, but China said last May to the UN's "Peace-keeping Peace Facility" that it would monitor the station's descent and inform the United Nations when the final fall of.

But even a few days before it will be impossible for scientists to figure out exactly where it will fall, McDowell said. "You can not direct these things. Even two days before his re-entry we will not know more than six or seven hours down when he falls. And since we will not know when, we will not know where, "she said.

McDowell said a slight change in atmospheric conditions could move the point of impact from one continent to the next.

Uncontrolled drops of spacecraft have occurred in the past, but none have caused human injury.

In 1991 the Soviet space station Salyut 7 and the Cosmos 1686 spacecraft, which was tethered to him, crashed over Argentina, wreaking debris over the town of Capitan Bermudez.

12 years ago, in 1979, NASA's Skylab Space Station returned uncontrollably to the atmosphere, burned and burned for the most part, but some big pieces fell outside Perth of western Australia.