NASA Satellite Plunges into Pacific off California

Influence from solar activity and the tumbling motion of the satellite made it difficult to narrow down where it would penetrate Earth’s atmosphere, and it was expected to leave a 500-mile (800-kilometer) debris footprint.

UARS was the biggest NASA spacecraft to fall since the 85-ton Skylab crashed into western Australia in 1979. A 40-tonne Russian space station Salyut 7 scattered over Argentina in 1991 after an uncontrolled return to Earth.

Despite the media frenzy that surrounded the UARS landing, orbital debris experts said space junk actually falls from the sky regularly, even weekly, according to Johnson.

“This is not an unusual event. We do not always know where these re-entries occur,” he said.