A 300kg NASA satellite is set to crash into Earth later today - and there is a chance it could land on someone's head. The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, known more commonly as RHESSI, has been in space for 21 years. It was launched in 2002 and deactivated in 2018, owing to communication issues.
It has simply been flying around ever since. But now, the Daily Star reports it is set to plummet back to the planet's surface, with the exact point of re-entry not yet made public.
The satellite weighs around 300kg, approximately 10 emus. And it should burn up as it enters the atmosphere, but there is a "low" chance it could land on a person's head.
According to NASA experts, the risk of it hitting someone is about one in 2,467. The space agency said: “NASA expects most of the spacecraft to burn up as it travels through the atmosphere, but some components are expected to survive reentry.
“The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is low — approximately one in 2,467. The spacecraft launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket with a mission to image the high-energy electrons that carry a large part of the energy released in solar flares.
"It achieved this with its sole instrument, an imaging spectrometer, which recorded X-rays and gamma rays from the Sun. Before RHESSI, no gamma-ray images nor high-energy X-ray images had been taken of solar flares.
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“Data from RHESSI provided vital clues about solar flares and their associated coronal mass ejections. It achieved this with its sole instrument, an imaging spectrometer, which recorded X-rays and gamma rays from the Sun. Before RHESSI, no gamma-ray images nor high-energy X-ray images had been taken of solar flares.
“Data from RHESSI provided vital clues about solar flares and their associated coronal mass ejections."
