Buzz
It won't be a bird, nor a plane: If you glance up at the sky next week, you might witness a Chinese spacecraft making one of its final orbits around Earth before it plunges through the atmosphere and disintegrates in a fiery explosion of debris.
The Tiangong-1 space lab, meaning "Heavenly Palace," was launched by the Chinese space agency on September 29, 2011, according to reports from Space.com. This was the agency's first module to test docking capabilities, crucial for transporting astronauts and supplies into space. Over its four-and-a-half-year mission, Tiangong-1 successfully docked with one unmanned and two manned spacecraft.
Two years ago, Chinese authorities announced that Tiangong-1 had finished its mission. Designated as space debris, the module began its slow descent toward its inevitable end.
Chinese officials report that Tiangong-1 is currently orbiting Earth every 88 minutes at an altitude of 134 miles, steadily moving closer to our planet's atmosphere each day. It is predicted to re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime between the early morning of March 30 and early morning of April 2, with April 1 being the most likely date for observers. (Follow its trajectory here.)
As it spirals through space, the 34-foot-long spacecraft will flicker with varying brightness levels. However, its final landing spot remains uncertain. Tiangong-1 is expected to descend anywhere between 42.8° north and 42.8° south latitude—a global belt roughly spanning from Boston, Massachusetts to Christchurch, New Zealand. This region covers approximately 80 percent of the contiguous United States, as well as large parts of China, Japan, Chile, Argentina, southern Europe, and Australia.
As Tiangong-1 crashes into Earth's atmosphere, it will ignite and shatter into large fragments before breaking apart further. Roughly 10 miles above Earth, the burning debris—which could still weigh over 200 pounds—will slow down and plummet straight to the ground.
As Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell explained to The Guardian in 2016, "Yes, there is a chance it will cause damage, it could hit someone's car, there might be a shower of metal fragments, it could even punch through someone's roof, like if a flap fell off a plane, but it won't cause widespread destruction."
Stay alert out there.
