NewDelhi: Analysts have claimed that Tiangong-1 could smash into the American state of Michigan on April 3, according to a report in Metro.co.uk.
The Chinese space lab – Tiangong-1 – has been making headlines since 2016, when scientists at China’s CNSA space agency admitted to having lost control of the lab, saying that it would be crash-landing on Earth.
That put an end to months of speculation, as experts watching the path of the station suggested that it had been behaving strangely.
Launched in 2011, the Asian country’s first space station was hailed as a potent political symbol of China’s growing power and is now expected to come crashing down to Earth within a few weeks. However, scientists had not been able to predict where the 8.5-tonne module will hit – till now.
Besides Michigan, analysts have also identified Northern China, central Italy, northern Spain, the Middle East, New Zealand, Tasmania, South America, southern Africa, and northern states in the US as the regions with a high chance of impact.
The concerning part about this is that Tiangong-1 is being claimed to pack a toxic and corrosive chemical called hydrazine.
The chemical is used in rocket fuel and long-term exposure is believed to cause cancer in humans.
As per the Metro report, although most of the craft will burn up when it ploughs into the atmosphere, between 10 and 40 percent of its mass could survive and plunge to Earth.
It will probably plummet into the ocean and Britain is not believed to be in the firing line.
According to Aerospace, a space research non-profit based in California, ‘There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground. Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over,’ Metro.co.uk reported.
Bureau Report
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