UAR Satellite Found in South Pacific

The dead NASA satellite fell into what might be the ideal spot — part of the southern Pacific Ocean about as far from large land masses as you can get, U.S. space officials said Tuesday.

New U.S. Air Force calculations put the 6-ton (5.4-metric ton) satellite's death plunge early Saturday thousands of miles (kilometers) from northwestern North America, where there were reports of sightings. Instead, it plunged into areas where remote islands dot a vast ocean.

NASA says those new calculations show the 20-year-old satellite entered Earth's atmosphere generally above American Samoa. But falling debris as it broke apart did not start hitting the water for another 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the northeast, southwest of Christmas Island, just after midnight EDT Saturday.

Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile (800 kilometer) span.

"It's a relatively uninhabited portion of the world, very remote," NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney said. "This is certainly a good spot in terms of risk."

Scientists who track space junk couldn't be happier with the result.

"That's the way it should be. I think that's perfect," said Bill Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at the Aerospace Corp. "It's just as good as it gets."

On Saturday, scientists said it was possible some pieces could have reached northwestern Canada and claims of sightings in Canada spread on the Internet. But NASA said Tuesday that new calculations show it landed several minutes earlier than they thought, changing the debris field to an entirely different hemisphere.

"It just shows you the difference that 10 or 15 minutes can make," said Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who tracks man-made space objects. On Saturday, he noted, "We were talking about, 'Wow, did it hit Seattle?'"

NASA won't say how it knows the climate research satellite came in earlier, referring questions to the U.S. Air Force space operations center. Air Force spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn said better computer model reconstruction after the satellite fell helped pinpoint where the satellite — called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite returned to Earth — returned to Earth

After UARS was launched in 1991, NASA and other space agencies adopted new procedures to lessen space junk and satellites falling back to Earth. So NASA has no more satellites as large as this one that will fall back to Earth uncontrolled in the next 25 years, according to NASA orbital debris chief scientist Nicholas Johnson.

But other satellites will continue to fall. Late in October, or early in November, a German astronomy satellite is set to plunge uncontrolled back to Earth. While slightly smaller than UARS, the German satellite is expected to have more pieces survive re-entry, said McDowell, who worked on one of the instruments for it.

The German ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990, died in 1998 and weighs 2 ½ tons (1.8 metric tons). The German space agency figures 30 pieces weighing less than 2 tons will survive re-entry. Debris may include sharp mirror shards.

The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at 1-in-2,000 — a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA satellite. But any one individual's odds of being struck are 1-in-14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.

The man, who has not made a mistake, probably never did anything new! A E.

The Particle of Change. Nuetrino

Path breaking Particle..

UAR Satellite debris Lay scatter all around

UARS 

NASA's dead 6-ton satellite plunged to Earth early Saturday, but more than eight hours later, U.S. space officials didn't know just where it hit. They thought the fiery fall was largely over water and the debris probably hurt no one.

The agency did not give a more specific location in a midday update on its website, which also said officials were not aware of any reports of injuries or property damage. Most of the spacecraft was believed to have burned up.

The bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, according to NASA and the U.S. Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center. But that doesn't necessarily mean it all fell into the sea.

NASA's earlier calculations had predicted that the 20-year-old former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile (800-kilometer) swath and could include land.

Because the plummet began over the ocean and given the lack of any reports of people being hit, that "gives us a good feeling that no one was hurt," but officials didn't know for certain, NASA spokesman Steve Cole told The Associated Press.

The two government agencies said the 35-foot (11-meter) satellite fell sometime between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday (0323 GMT Saturday) and 1:09 a.m. EDT (0509 GMT) Saturday, but with no precise time or location.

There was rampant speculation on the Internet and Twitter, much of it focusing on unconfirmed reports and even video of debris from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite over Alberta, Canada.

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said the spacecraft entered the atmosphere around 12:15 a.m. EDT (1615 GMT) over the coast of Washington state. He said much of the debris likely fell over the Pacific Ocean, though its trajectory suggests some of it could have fallen over more heavily populated areas in the U.S. and Canada, including Portland, Oregon; Seattle; Calgary, Alberta; and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

"Pieces are falling off of this flaming fire ball, and some of it has enough momentum to go hundreds of miles," he said.

Cole said that was possible because the last track for the satellite included Canada, starting north of Seattle and then in a large arc north then south. From there, the track continued through the Atlantic south toward Africa, but it was unlikely the satellite got that far if it started falling over the Pacific.

Cole said NASA was hoping for more details from the Air Force, which was responsible for tracking debris.

But given where the satellite may have fallen, officials may never quite know precisely.

"Most space debris is in the ocean. It'll be hard to confirm," Cole said.

Some 26 pieces of the satellite representing 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of heavy metal had been expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms).

UARS is the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the post-Apollo 75-ton Skylab space station and the more than 10-ton Pegasus 2 satellite, both in 1979.

Russia's 135-ton Mir space station slammed through the atmosphere in 2001, but it was a controlled dive into the Pacific.

Before UARS fell, no one had ever been hit by falling space junk and NASA expected that not to change.

NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth would get hurt at 1-in-3,200. But any one person's odds of being struck were estimated at 1-in-22 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.

The satellite ran out of fuel and died in 2005. UARS was built and launched before NASA and other nations started new programs that prevent this type of uncontrolled crashes of satellite.

___The man, who has not made a mistake, probably never did anything new! A E.

UAR Satellite to Fall In US ? Watch from Australia

UARS Track as shown by the latest calculations from CalSky.

A quick update on the re-entry of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). CalSky is currently predicting that around September 24, 0 UT (that's 10 am AEST) the satellite will hit the atmosphere and burn up, producing a bright meteor-like train as it does.

The current ground track suggests that the satellite will burn up over the Atlantic Ocean. However, the uncertainty in it's orbit is still high, and its orbit is still evolving. You can check its progress on CalSky or Heavens Above from your site, just in case it burns up over your skies. Southern Australians might see it flash through the dawn sky around 6:00 am.

An another report shows that the debris may fall in US










The man, who has not made a mistake, probably never did anything new! A E.

Neutrinos broke the Speed of Light..? E=MC2..?

Neutrinos beamed from CERN in Switzerland to the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy appear to have travelled faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, known as c, breaking the rules laid down by Einstein's theory of relativity. The discovery has been made as part of the OPERA experiment and is based on the observation of over 15,000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso. The neutrinos were clocked travelling at a velocity 20 parts per million above c, hitherto believed to be nature's ultimate speed limit. They completed the journey in roughly three milliseconds, passing straight through the Earth's crust. No measurement artefacts have been found to account for the result, described by CERN research director Sergio Bertolucci as "apparently unbelievable." The implications for this could be enormous: The constant c turns up in many key physics equations - not least of which is the famous statement of mass-energy equivalence, E=mc². Given the potentially far-reaching consequences of the finding, further independent measurements are now being called for before the effect can be either refuted or firmly established, and the OPERA collaboration has therefore decided to open up the result to broader scrutiny from the scientific community.

The man, who has not made a mistake, probably never did anything new! A E.