Latest news with #latitude
Fast Company
09-05-2025
- Science
- Fast Company
Soviet spacecraft Kosmos 482 will crash into Earth soon: Online tracker resources are following its reentry
BY The Soviet Union launched over a dozen probes to Venus —most successfully. But one never made it past Earth's orbit and has, in fact, stayed there since 1972. Now, over 50 years later, the one-meter-large Kosmos 482 is coming home, albeit a bit haphazardly. The 1,091-pound craft, also known as Kosmos 482 and Venera 8, is predicted to reach reentry within nine hours of 1:54 a.m. ET on May 10, according to the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS). In other words, this could be late afternoon today or sometime tomorrow morning. If you think the when is varied, wait until you hear about the where. Aerospace, the American nonprofit research and development center that runs CORDS, currently predicts that the craft could land anywhere between 52 degrees north and 52 degrees south latitude. Ironically, that covers almost every country except the USSR's successor, Russia. What will happen to the probe upon reentry? The craft could stay intact the entire way to Earth, as it was designed to survive the more severe atmosphere of Venus. However, the risk of it causing injury or death upon impact is about 0.4 in 10,000, according to Aerospace. 'While the risk is nonzero, any one individual on Earth is far likelier to be struck by lightning than to be injured by Kosmos 482,' the organization states. 'We definitely do not expect Kosmos 482 to land in your yard specifically. Given the nature of its orbit, most of the Earth is still in play for its reentry, and consequently it is far more likely to land in the ocean or an unpopulated area.' In the rare chance that Kosmos 482 does land near you, Aerospace cautions you to contact the authorities and not touch it as it could be hazardous. Plus, an early space-age United Nations treaty means it could technically belong to Russia.
CBC
08-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Russian spacecraft expected to survive death plunge to Earth later this week
Sometime during the second week of May, a 53 year old Soviet era spacecraft — originally designed to land on Venus — is predicted to come crashing back to Earth. There's a good chance it won't entirely burn-up and the remains may make it all the way to the surface of our planet. Re-entry is currently forecasted for May 10th. Kosmos 482 was launched from the former Soviet Union in 1972 on a course that was supposed to take it to Venus. But a failure of the upper-stage rocket booster left it in an elliptical orbit around the Earth, where it has remained for more than half a century. Over time, the orbit has decayed and now the defunct probe will return home. Exactly when and where the impact will occur will not be known until just hours before it enters the Earth's atmosphere, but it will fall between 52 degrees north and 52 degrees south latitude, which covers an enormous proportion of the most densely inhabited parts of the world. The part of the spacecraft expected to make it all the way to the ground is the half-ton spherical landing capsule which was designed to survive some of the harshest conditions in the solar system. Venus is sometimes referred to as our sister planet because it is in some ways similar to the Earth: a rocky world about the same size and with a thick atmosphere covered in clouds. But that is where the similarity ends. The surface of Venus is a planetary hellscape with a thick atmosphere made of carbon dioxide, dense clouds of sulphuric acid and temperatures at the surface above 460C. In other words, landing on Venus is like drifting down through battery acid, then touching ground hot enough to melt lead. The crushing atmospheric pressure may be 75 to 100 times greater than that on Earth. Any spacecraft designed to land on Venus must be strong enough to survive that hellish environment. The Soviet Union is the only country to land on Venus with eight landers called the Venera missions. These spacecraft were built like deep-sea submersibles, with thick spherical shells about a metre in diameter able to withstand the atmospheric pressure, protect against the corrosive atmosphere and provide cooling for the scientific instruments. Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to transmit data from the surface of another planet when it touched down on the surface in 1970 despite a ripped parachute. It survived for 23 minutes before succumbing to those harrowing conditions. The longest time spent working on the surface was 127 minutes by Venera 13 which also sent back the first colour images of the scorched barren landscape under a brownish sky. Kosmos 482 was also designed to survive plunging into the thick hot atmosphere of our sister planet, which is why it has a good chance of making it through Earth's much thinner and cooler air. Newly published images show an elongated structure that might be the landing capsule's exposed parachute. If that is the case, it'd likely burn up upon re-entry and have no effect on slowing the spacecraft down. Even if the parachute hasn't deployed, experts think it's unlikely to do so on the way down because any instruments to measure altitude or pressure as well as triggering mechanisms to release the chute are expected to be long dead after more than 50 years in space. That means atmospheric drag would slow it down to about 240 km/hr all the way to the ground. If the capsule lands in water, which is the most likely scenario since most of the Earth's surface is ocean, it could remain intact. Whether it floats or not is uncertain. We can hope it won't come down on a building or crowded street, but if it does, it would not be expected to cause a huge crater in the ground. If it doesn't completely burn up, it would be interesting to study the remains to get a glimpse into Soviet-era technology and see the effects of long exposure to materials in space. When we get closer to its expected re-entry date and it looks like it could be coming down in your area, look for a bright streak in the sky, even visible during the day, then listen for the sound of a thumping crash, hopefully not too close to where you are standing.
RNZ News
06-05-2025
- Climate
- RNZ News
Ocean near New Zealand warming faster than anywhere else, study finds
A study led by top climate scientist Dr Kevin Trenberth and others shows New Zealand's slice of the ocean is absorbing more heat than any other. Photo: Chris Loufte A study has found New Zealand's slice of the ocean is absorbing more heat than any other. One of the scientists behind the work says the effect is not just making the sea feel a bit warmer for a dip, but worsening storms like ex-tropical Cyclone Tam, which wreaked havoc with heavy rain over Easter. Hotter oceans do not just affect marine creatures - they are linked to shrinking glaciers and wilder, wetter storms. Oceans absorb most of the excess heat that people are pumping into the climate system and without them, air temperatures over land would be hotter. But the seas are not heating evenly. A study led by top New Zealand climate scientist Dr Kevin Trenberth and others shows two circular bands of the ocean have been taking up more heat than the rest. One band is located about 40 degrees latitude south and the other is around 40 degrees latitude north. "The pattern comes out to be quite striking and what we've found is that the biggest warming [in] the ocean is occurring in the middle latitudes near New Zealand's latitudes and also at comparable latitudes in the Northern hemisphere." The band with the strongest heating is the southern one where New Zealand sits, because southern latitudes have more ocean, so the effect is more pronounced. Dr Trenberth said the main reason is storm tracks and strong winds in the upper atmosphere shifting towards the poles and corresponding changes in ocean currents. He said while warmer seas helped us enjoy long fine summer weather, it is a different matter when weather systems start to get more active in autumn and winter. Flooding on State Highway 10 at Kāeo during ex-tropical Cyclone Tam in April. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf "They start to encounter these warmer oceans and suddenly these warmer oceans put more water vapour into the atmosphere which fuels these storms. It means the rainfalls are a lot heavier and we've seen a couple of examples of that over the last two or three weeks, especially with ex-tropical Cyclone Tam." Dr Phil Sutton, an oceanographer at NIWA, said the latest study fits with what observers have been seeing in oceans around New Zealand for 30 years, and adds to their understanding by looking at both atmospheric changes and oceans. He said westerly winds have grown stronger and moved to the south, meaning water piles up in the South Pacific's subtropical gyre - a circular system he describes as being like a huge whirlpool - and gets warmer. The core of the changes is happening just northeast of New Zealand, he said. While the water around Antarctica is often a topic of concern, Dr Sutton said the study confirms that the ocean near us are heating much more rapidly. "Not to say you shouldn't be highly concerned about even small changes down there, because even small changes could have a huge impact on forming ice, but there's not so much happening down there in fact [compared with New Zealand]. "So New Zealand really is in a very interesting and challenging - interesting scientifically but perhaps concerning environmentally - spot in the world's oceans." Photo: NIWA / Luke McPake Dr Sutton has been studying a particularly unusual warming hotspot just south of Chatham Islands, where he said heating has gone "beserk" since 2015 and marine heat waves now persist for more than 200 days of the year. "We seem to be seeing the first sign of systematic change around New Zealand, where those subtropical waters are pushing into an area where they didn't used to be," he said. He said his colleagues in fisheries want to know what that means for hoki and orange roughy fisheries in the area, but it was too soon to say. Dr Sutton was pleased to see that the latest study drew ocean temperatures from a programme of Argo floats, robotic instruments that drift in the ocean, measuring temperature and salinity in the upper 2000 meters. "At the moment there are about 4100 floats operational around the world and New Zealand has been a big player with the US and Australia in deploying the floats. Around 890 or so of those were deployed by New Zealand, so we have an outsized contribution to maintaining that global array. "You can sit at your desk and know what the ocean is doing. "You used to have to get on a ship and ... you'd only know what was happening right where you took the ship." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
