According to the Associated Press on the 10th, an abandoned Venus probe launched in the Soviet era returned to Earth on the same day after drifting in space for 53 years. Fortunately, the out-of-control detector eventually fell into the Indian Ocean, causing no casualties or property damage on the ground.

  Ring Video/Production Wang Li

  According to reports, the Soviet Union launched the Venus probe in March 1972, code-named "Cosmic 482". It originally planned to go to Venus for atmospheric detection, but due to a launch vehicle failure, it failed to move to the orbit and stayed in an elliptical orbit around the earth. In the decades that followed, "Cosmic 482" was affected by the thin atmosphere of low-Earth orbit, and its flight orbit gradually decreased. The ESA announced on the 10th that the probe entered the Earth's atmosphere at around 9:24 am Moscow time that day, and eventually landed in the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia.

  The trajectory of "Cosmic 482" has always attracted the attention of astronomers and space transportation experts from various countries. "Cosmic 482" is about 1 meter wide and weighs about 495 kilograms. In terms of volume and weight alone, it is not outstanding among the space garbage that has returned to Earth in recent years. But the problem lies in the solid design of "Cosmic 482". Generally speaking, when abandoned satellites or other space waste return to Earth, they will undergo high-speed friction with the dense atmosphere above the Earth and are basically burned, with only a small amount of wreckage falling to the ground at most. But "Cosmic 482" was specially developed to explore Venus. The atmospheric density of Venus is 90 times that of the Earth. In order to withstand the high temperature and pressure caused by friction with Venus during landing, Soviet engineers designed a solid heat shield for it, which may still be intact today. Therefore, "Cosmic 482" is likely to hit the surface of the Earth in a basically intact state. The US "Space" website said on the 10th that according to experts' estimates, if "Cosmic 482" does not break during its reentering into the Earth's atmosphere, it may hit the Earth at a speed of 240 kilometers per hour, with its power equivalent to a meteorite with a diameter of 0.5 meters (after landing) falling to the ground.

  Astronomers are worried that since "Cosmic 482" no longer has the ability to maneuver and cannot receive ground commands, it is destined to land on Earth in an uncontrolled reentry mode. "The complexity of space flight and unpredictable factors (such as space weather) make it very complicated to accurately predict when it will be out of orbit and where it will fall." However, the Russian State Space Corporation said that "Cosmic 482" is unlikely to pose a threat to the ground. "In fact, on average, five space objects fall on Earth every day, many of which have a mass of more than 500 kilograms, and we can observe them at night, just like meteors. But the loss of the ground is very rare and no casualties have been caused."

  The Associated Press said that the fall of "Cosmic 482" has also attracted people's attention to the increasingly serious space garbage problem in low-Earth orbit. "On average, three considerable space debris hit the Earth every day, and this number is still increasing." According to ESA statistics, there are 14,240 satellites in Earth's orbit, of which 11,400 are active. Among the space garbage surrounding the earth, 1.2 million have diameters of more than 1 cm, and more than 100 million have diameters of more than 1 cm. "As space becomes more and more busy, it is expected that the frequency of abandoned satellites or space waste will re-enter the atmosphere in the future will further increase." Kyodo News also warned on the 11th that the number of space waste such as scrapped satellites and rocket wrecks is increasing. (Chen Shan)

[Editor in charge: Wang Jinzhi]