NASA is going to rush back one of its old satellites to Earth, a fatal fall scheduled for the night of Wednesday April 19 to Thursday April 20, 2023 which will destroy the spacecraft. The latter is called RHESSI (Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager). It was used to observe solar flares.
The US space agency announced the operation on its website. The destruction of RHESSI comes 21 years after its launch. He observed the solar star between February 5, 2002 and August 16, 2018. NASA resolved to this decision after encountering communication problems with its retired satellite.
Space experts say that the chances of danger posed by the fall of the NASA satellite are low.
It is believed that the satellite "Rhessi" will burn in the atmosphere on Wednesday night, according to NASA and the Pentagon.
When it sends one of its satellites into the atmosphere, NASA expects it to burn up, "but some components should survive re-entry," she says. The risk of encountering one of these debris for humans is still low, about 1 in 2,467.
NASA did not reveal where the moon is expected to fall, due to the ongoing uncertainty about when and where exactly the moon will fall.
According to the US Space Agency's calculations, the observatory, which weighs about 300 kilograms, should enter the atmosphere around 3:00 am (Paris time) this Thursday, April 20, with a margin of error of 4 p.m.
A solar observatory located in Low-Earth orbit bids farewell with a good track record. RHESSI was able to study a complete solar cycle (11 years) and recorded over 100,000 of her X-ray events. The satellite took pictures of photons emitted during solar flares. When scientists learned about the satellite's imminent crash, they remembered their work based on that data.
Coincidentally, the RHESSI crash could occur around the same time as an astronomical phenomenon involving the Sun, which the observatory has helped so much to understand. A solar eclipse has been announced for the night of April 19-20. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Australia. The moment of RHESSI's crash is predicted to be just two hours before the total eclipse (ignoring a plus or minus 16-hour margin).
An object from the sky illuminated the entire capital of Ukraine, according to videos posted on social networking websites.
A flash in the skies of Kyiv, which caused a lot of reactions on social media networks was caused by the fall of a NASA satellite, according to the city administration.
The head of the Kyiv city military administration, Sergiy Popko on Telegram, said that around 10 p.m. an aerial object was observed in the sky of Kyiv, adding that according to initial information, this phenomenon is the consequence of the fall of a NASA satellite to Earth.
Journalists saw a flash in the sky which was followed by no sound. The air alert was activated, underlined Mr. Popko who stressed that no military action was taken.
Shortly after, the Ukrainian Air Force also claimed that the flash was "related to the fall of a satellite/meteorite", while stating that this was yet to be clarified. "Social media is having fun spreading flying saucer memes, but please don't use the official Air Force logo to make memes," the force added.
Edited by : Ritaja Kar
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