2023-04-19 00:04:40
A decommissioned satellite will enter the atmosphere to crash into Earth on Wednesday evening, but the chances of its debris harming anyone are “low” according to NASA.
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The Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) was notably used for observing solar flares between 2002 and 2018 before being decommissioned due to communication issues with the spacecraft.
The 300-kilogram satellite is expected to descend to Earth around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, “with an uncertainty of plus or minus 16 hours,” NASA said in a statement.
She also adds that she believes that the vast majority of the craft’s components will burn up in the atmosphere, but that she expects some parts to survive this passage.
The space agency estimates that the chance of debris harming a human is 1 in 2,467.
Over the years, the RHESSI has notably improved the accuracy of calculations related to the size of the sun and helped to discover that gamma rays emitted from the top of the Earth’s atmosphere are more frequent than previously believed.
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