What Happens When a Space Station Falls Out of the Sky
“Have you ever seen <em>Gravity</em>?”
Sometime this weekend, an abandoned Chinese space station the size of a school bus will plummet back to Earth and mostly disintegrate in the atmosphere. Whatever chunks survive the intense heat of the journey will probably land in the ocean or a remote part of land, away from populated areas.
It’ll be quick, and chances are nobody will witness the reentry from the ground. So what exactly will happen to Tiangong-1 as it comes hurtling down?
“Have you ever seen Gravity?” Ted Muelhaupt says. “The depiction of the reentry in that movie is actually pretty accurate. It was one of the better things about that movie.”
