A NASA satellite named UARS has gone rouge! It has failed to burn up in space and has now fallen to earth in the Pacific ocean. Scientists have estimated that it landed somewhere between Hawaii and and the west coast of North America. NASA said that they have not been notified of any pieces found or any injuries yet. NASA predicts that it entered the atmosphere around 12:20am. Some people reported lights in the sky that may have been the satellite but those reports where not reasonable to the estimation of time or the area where it landed. They predicted that the satellite would break up into 26 pieces and fall over a stretch of about 500 miles.
NASA's six ton satellite the UARS was on a 14 year mission to collect data on earths atmosphere and its interactions with the sun. It also gathered info about chemicals in the atmosphere and the winds above the earth. The satellite orbited earth about 78,000 times! Before the UARS little was known about the area 80-300 kilometers above the earth.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nasa-satellite-20110925,0,3623009.story
I think that it was scary that something that big fell out of the sky going that fast and could
have landed anywhere! I also think that NASA needs to install destruct buttons or something so things
like this don't occur often. I do think that even though this happened, that satellite got us a ton of info
on what is going on in space and the earths atmosphere. Thats what my opinion on the whole thing is!
By: Antonio Bruni
