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"Heavy" precipitation, or "The Sky Is Falling!"

Posted by Bret B on September 23, 2011, 1:44 pm
187.146.112.102

In addition to the unpredictable chance of rain today, you can add an even more unpredictable chance of falling debris from the NASA UARS satellite as it is scheduled to reenter late tonight or early tomorrow:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/uars/status.html

Seriously, the chance of anything falling on us is virtually zero. That's good, because I don't know what the rain gauge would make of a chunk of titanium. But if you want to catch a final glimpse of the satellite before its fiery plunge, there is one chance to spot it from La Manz tonight around 8:15PM, clouds permitting:

http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=21701&lat=19.280071&lng=-104.787995&loc=La+Manzanilla%2c+MX&alt=0&tz=CST

It'll be like seeing the Space Station except faster and not as bright. You should refresh that link tonight to see if they have updated its diminishing orbital timing.

This satellite coming down during an interesting local hurricane reminds of July 1979 when Skylab was coming down while Hurricane Bob was drenching me in Biloxi, MS. You realize how much a hurricane looks like a target from space, right??? ("Bullseye!") Luckily, Skylab mostly fell in the Pacific, except for some good-sized pieces that ended up in Australia.
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