Over five decades since its deployment, the Soviet space probe named Kosmos 482 is set to plummet back to Earth. Initially designed to touch down on Venus, the craft began disintegrating in low Earth orbit and failed to reach its target destination. Following years of circulating around our planet in an elliptical path, it is now poised to descend rapidly towards the surface.
In 1972, Kosmos 482 was sent into space; however, due to the secretive nature of the era amid the Cold War, details regarding its precise objective, appearance, and dimensions remain scarce. The limited information we have suggests it was intended for Venus, as evidenced by concurrent Soviet endeavors targeting Earth’s neighboring planet and indications from the craft’s attempted path toward this celestial body prior to disintegration. While the root cause of the vehicle’s malfunction remains uncertain, three out of the four resulting debris chunks landed in New Zealand soon following liftoff.
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The final segment moved into a more elevated orbit, where its nearest approach to Earth was approximately 210 kilometers above ground level and its farthest point reached about 9,800 kilometers away. Throughout the years, gases from the uppermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere have gradually decelerated this object, reducing the size of its orbital path around our planet. As a result, it has now approached closely enough to make an eventual descent. The anticipated date for its return to Earth is between May 9th and 10th.
The leftover part of the spacecraft, known as the landing capsule, is believed to have a diameter exceeding one meter and weighs close to 500 kilograms. Given its substantial size and the probability that it was constructed to endure entry into Venus’s extremely hot and thick atmosphere, it appears quite probable that it will remain largely undamaged during its descent and impact the surface forcefully, traveling faster than 200 kilometers per hour.
Predicting precisely where the final segment of Kosmos 482 might crash is not feasible. Given its present orbital path, it has the potential to impact any location on Earth within the latitude range of 52 degrees north to 52 degrees south—this encompasses regions ranging from the southernmost part of South America all the way up through portions of Canada and Russia. Fortunately, even though this broad swath includes many possible touchdown points, the likelihood of hitting a populated region remains quite slim. As stated by Marcin Pilinski at the University of Colorado Boulder, “The chances are astronomically minute.”
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. “It will very likely land in the ocean.”
Pilinski is part of a group monitoring the debris. As it gets nearer, the potential landing locations and times become more defined. Debris from space descending back to Earth happens frequently; approximately one tracked item by NASA descends daily, with many burning up in the atmosphere or plunging into the sea. Kosmos 482 is merely a larger and sturdier example of such orbital waste.
