Heads Up!

ABC News is reporting that NASA's satellite, UARS, will be falling through the atmosphere at 1800 mph sometime later this evening. UARS is an old, meteorological satellite used to research Earth's upper atmosphere. Launched in 1991 by the space shuttle, Discovery, it will be the largest satellite to come down from orbit since USA's first space station, SkyLab, in 1979. The problem is no one knows exactly when and exactly where all the pieces will land. NASA usually can track space junk really well, however, when this begins to free fall and tumble, the track will be too variable to make any predictions.

Earth's atmosphere often has debris falling through it - usually meteors and old, smaller satellites. "Shooting stars" are a misnomer for these objects as they appear to be stars shooting across the night sky. However, what people are really seeing is the object burning up as friction is created when the object reaches Earth's atmosphere.

I think it's interesting that some of this big stuff is finally going to come down to Earth. You know what they say... "What goes up...," right? Being 2011, a lot of this junk is going to start coming back down. I'm thinking about wearing my motorcycle helmet for the rest of the day today - just in case! Imagine if you see the 350 pound piece burning up - I will be wishing on THAT shooting star!

Mrs. Mackenzie