A Soviet-era spacecraft that has been in orbit for over 50 years is set to crash land into Earth at some point over the next week.
But what has this mysterious craft been doing in space all this time, and why is it only coming down now?
Director of research for society at Research Ireland Ruth Freeman told Moncrieff that the craft, known as Cosmos 482, was originally designed to land on Venus.
“Venus is a bit of a hellscape really of a planet with an incredibly intense greenhouse effect and temperatures of up to 470° centigrade and crushing atmospheric pressure,” she said.
“This particular object was designed for interplanetary travel, but the launch failed back in 1972 when it was launched from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
“So, rather than going out to Venus, it ended up sort of stuck in this Earth orbit.
“But it seems to be losing track now and it’s falling back down to Earth.”
Vintage Soviet Space Race Propaganda Poster. USSR 1964. Image: JJs / AlamyMs Freeman said that Cosmos 482 was a part of a Soviet programme to study Venus.
“They weren’t trying to colonise Venus, but they were trying to go to Venus to understand more about it,” she said.
“They did have a programme - this probe obviously didn’t make it there - but there were other probes that they sent later that did get to Venus and in fact sent us back information that tells us some of what we know about Venus today.
“They never admitted that it was a failure, but even back then during the Cold War, scientists all over the world knew when there were launches.”
According to Ms Freeman, there’s no need to worry about Cosmos 482 crashing down on top of anyone, as it will likely land somewhere uninhabited, or in the ocean.
Main image: Satellite hurtling through space burning up as it enters the atmosphere. Image: Paul Fleet / Alamy.
