The 53 -year -old Soviet spacecraft will collapse to Earth this week

Kosmos 482 was held in the Earth’s orbit for 53 years, but its rooted journey is close to its end. Venus’s failed mission in the atmosphere is expected to restore a dramatic fall towards its original planet, as it may remain intact or scattered through a site that is still unknown on both sides of the equator.

The spacecraft in the Soviet era will be drowned in the Earth’s atmosphere at some point from 8 to 12 May. As of now, the exact location of the place where Cosmos 482 will be destroyed on the ground unknown, with a preliminary estimate that extends across large parts of the world on both sides of Maksia. It is also not clear whether the spacecraft will remain in one piece or whether it will collapse during the re -enter, or parts of the debris are raised.

Kosmos 482 was launched on March 31, 1972, from the Cosmodrome Spaceport in what is known as Kazakhstan. The task was an attempt by the Soviet space program to reach Venus, but it failed to get enough speed to enter the transport path towards the hot incendiary planet. A malfunction of the burning of an engine was not sufficient to reach the orpse of Venus, according to Nassa. Since then, the spacecraft has been stuck in an oval orbit around the Earth. The spacecraft entered a top or 130 in 6,089 miles (210 in 9800 km).

Astronomer Ralph Vandberg recently took pictures of Kosmos 482 in space before his expected descending, and I notice what was widespread from the spacecraft. “At this point, nothing is certain,” Vandiberg told Gizmodo in an email. “In 2014, I had the first sign of this in my photos, but I did not think seriously about this possibility. But when I tackled the 2024 photos taken after 10 years and saw the same thing, I thought I needed to report this possibility.”

#cosmos482 Note about the possibility of umbrella. Although there is still speculation as mentioned before, technically the pictures are correct. There are no tracking problems, domain problems, and I do not expect a similar effect in the images in the images that were reduced 10 years away, if this is the case. pic.twitter.com/dicmzQny0z

– Ralph Vandberg (@radvvandbebergh) May 6, 2025

Even if the open umbrella of the spacecraft is hanging in space, it is unlikely to do its work to slow down the descent of Cosmos towards Earth.

After failing to reach Venus, the spacecraft separated into four different pieces, with smaller shrapnel on Ashburton, New Zealand, two days after its launch. The remaining two pieces are a bearing bus and cradle, together formed a spherical pressure bowl weighing more than 1000 pounds (495 kilograms).

Today, it is difficult to determine where the rest of the Earth -resistant spacecraft will be returned. Its current orbit indicates that anywhere should be between the latitude 52 degrees north and 52 degrees south, according to Marco Langbrok, a satellite follower in Leiden, Netherlands. This barely narrows it because this region includes the United States, South America, Africa and Australia, most Europe and Asia south of the Arctic circle. The landing area in the spacecraft will become more clear because it is close to re -entered the convict.

Another question is how many of this will escape the heat of re -entering the atmosphere. “Since this is a cradle that was designed to survive through the flower atmosphere, it is possible that it will escape the re -entry through the Earth’s atmosphere intact, and affects the sound,” books In the blog update.

Langbroek suggests an effect of about 150 miles per hour (242 km per hour) if the drop does not explode or burn largely while re -entering. The kinetic energy is similar to the effect of 15 to 21 inches (from 40 to 55 to 55 ° C), according to Langbroek.

Since our planet is often composed of water, it is possible that the spacecraft will end at the bottom of the ocean. However, the chances of the influence of information technology that affects a populated area is not zero, so it constitutes a form of risk, especially because the date of re -entry and its location remains unconfirmed.