1:3200. Those are the odds of getting crushed in a fiery, compacting death by one of 26 pieces of the UARS(Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) orbiter as it falls out of its orbit later this week, breaks up, and plunges to Earth. It was sent up 20 years ago to find the mythical ozone hole, but since that was a joke, it's just been wandering around upper Earth orbit till the gas ran out.
As with Skylab back in 1979, NASA scientists haven't a clue where or even precisely when it'll come down, but it could hit people, and I doubt your home's roof could slow down a 1-ton piece of flaming, white-hot metal traveling at terminal velocity with your name on it.
So good luck faithful readers. Keep your eye on the sky and your body safely buried in an underground fallout shelter if you have one.
6 comments:
I think those are the odds that 1 person on earth will be crushed, not that any one individual will be.
One person on Earth? Well that's not very exciting, is it?
1 chance in 3200 that you personally would be crushed in a specific incident would represents one of the gravest threats you have ever faced. The odds of dying in a plane crash while flying one of the 25 WORST airlines in the world is 1 chance in 843,744. Note: from planecrashinfo.com
I'm underwhelmed now.
Into the Pacific without drama, as expected.
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