Technology
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Nope, not even the cosmos is free from the curse of “Friday the 13th.” On November 13, 2015, a mysterious piece of space junk will re-enter the atmosphere and hit Earth.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.The space debris – known as WT1190F or, more fittingly, WTF – is expected to land around 100 kilometers (62 miles) off the coast of Sri Lanka into the Indian Ocean. Scientists are still pretty stumped as to what precisely the object is, although the European Space Agency (ESA) thinks it might be a chunk of a rocket's body.
The ESA has been tracking the object ever since its orbit appeared to be degrading. Slooh’s robotic telescopes have been used to estimate where and when the space trash will hit.
Considering the first satellite launched into space occurred less than 60 years, we've left a lot of our trash up there (classic humans). NASA estimates there are around 13,000 pieces of space debris above Earth that are larger than 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) in diameter – some of which are traveling up to 8 kilometers (5 miles) per second.
Slooh will be hosting a special broadcast to discuss the event at 5 a.m. PST / 8 a.m. EST / 13:00 UTC, which you can live stream here (for international times, click here). The show will be hosted by members of Slooh as well as a team of scientists, who will discuss everything you need to know about space junk and their impacts.
Using the hashtag #slooh on Twitter, you can ask the experts questions during the show.
Watch the stream here:
