Nasa Satellite Finally Plummets to Earth in Ball of Fire

KOMPAS.com - Debris from the falling Nasa satellite has been spotted crashing to Earth by amateur skywatchers across the world.

A series of videos purportedly showing the UARS spacecraft entering the atmosphere have emerged, with a sightings in Texas and California caught on film by news stations.

In a clip shown on Good Morning America, the satellite can be seen streaking across the sky somewhere over California.

Another video, lasting 46 seconds and taken by local news station KSAT, shows a bright light shooting past stars over San Antonio, Texas, with the cameraman only just able to keep up with its speed.

A video posted on YouTube captures what could be the satellite crashing to Earth at 3.55am local time in Maro Valley, near Imperia in north Italy.

It shows a vein of light flashing downwards and the poster writes the object made a loud noise and bounced once in the valley. Reports suggest the satellite could have been in the area at the time.

The out-of-control satellite probably crashed to Earth today, splitting up into dozens of fragments as it entered the atmosphere over the Pacific, Nasa has revealed.

But experts at the space agency still do not know exactly where pieces, which plummeted towards our planet at 18,000mph, landed - except that it did not touch U.S. airspace.

A Tweet on Nasa's official Twitter account this morning said debris from the six-tonne Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite had landed.

And if they hit land at all, it is likely to have come down in Canada or Africa. But the agency said it is seeking official confirmation with the United States Strategic Command.

And it added, on another Tweet, that anyone who finds a piece of debris would have to hand it over.

The agency said: 'Any pieces of #UARS found are still the property of the country that made it. You'll have to give 'em back to U.S.'

The craft was being tracked by all available equipment, including a giant radar at RAF Fylingdales on the North York Moors, England, on its path towards our planet.

NASA said it would only know two hours before impact where it would land – and even that prediction would only be accurate to the nearest 6,000 miles.

The agency said it could be anywhere between the 57th parallel north, which crosses Britain at around Inverness, and the 57th parallel south, which passes just below South America.

Global interest in the satellite grew yesterday: a website set up to 'track' the falling satellite was constantly crashing under incredible demand, and an app for Android smartphones, Satellite AR, allowed people to 'see' where it was at any moment.

An incredible video captured the doomed Nasa satellite earlier this week as NASA experts slowly narrowed down the area where it could strike.

Astrophotographer Thierry Legault's clip, shot in northern France, shows the 20-year-old UARS satellite, appearing as a beaming mass of light as it careers to Earth.

The station at RAF Fylingdalers was originally built at the height of the Cold War to track any incoming ballistic missile attack - a role it still performs.

An RAF spokeswoman said: 'The Space Operations Room at Royal Air Force Fylingdales is manned 24 hours a day by specialist Royal Air Force and civilian personnel, and its operators will be working to track the UARS object as it returns to the atmosphere.

'The Solid State Phased Array Radar is being tasked by the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force to concentrate its radar energy towards the object in order to track its final orbit.'

'This information will then be used by various different agencies to predict the path of re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.'

The 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite was the biggest Nasa spacecraft to fall uncontrolled from the sky in 32 years.

It was expected to break into more than 100 pieces as it enters the atmosphere, most of it burning up.

The heaviest metal parts were expected to reach Earth, the biggest chunk weighing about 300lb. It was thought the debris could be scattered over an area about 500 miles long.

Mr Legault's footage of UARS was captured through the lens of his Celestron EdgeHD 14in Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope in Dunkerque, France on September 15 - eight to nine days before its estimated re-entry.

Filmed at an altitude of only 250km, the body of the UARS is visible, as are its solar arrays.

Mr Legault told the skywatching website Spaceweather.com at the time: 'The satellite appears to be tumbling, perhaps because a collision with satellite debris a few years ago. The variations in brightness are rapid and easily visible to the human eye.'

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, ran out of fuel in 2005. Nasa spokesman Steve Cole said: ‘Anybody who finds a piece of the satellite should stay away from it and call the police and let them deal with it.

‘It could be very hot or it could be dangerous. It depends on what speed the debris is going, but it could go be going fast enough to go through a house.'

It was falling to Earth at five miles per second, faster than previously thought and experts said there was a one in 3,200 chance of someone being hit by debris – more likely than getting a hole in one during a round of golf. The 35ft Nasa craft was put into space in 1991 to monitor climate change.

In 1979 Skylab, which was 15 times bigger, rained charred chunks on the Indian Ocean and western Australia after Nasa said it would land in South Africa.

In 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia exploded upon re-entry killing its entire crew, large chunks of its shell landed across Texas.