News

Actions

Chinese space station Tiangong-1 re-enters atmosphere, largely burns up

Posted at 9:24 PM, Apr 01, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-01 21:30:51-04

(FOX News) — A defunct Chinese space lab has re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and mostly burned up, authorities in Beijing said late Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if the remains of the space station, known as Tiangong-1, had been accounted for.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) had said that Tiangong-1 was expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in an area centered on 19.4 degrees west longitude and 10.2 degrees south latitude — in the South Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Brazil.

Although the Chinese station has received intense media coverage, each year around 1,000 large objects such as lost satellites and rocket stages fall back to Earth. These numbers are projected to increase over the coming years as more and more satellites are placed into orbit.