Don’t mind the foul-smelling metal debris falling from space.
Parts of the largest piece of trash ever jettisoned from the International Space Station are expected to crash to earth sometime later tomorrow, NASA officials said.
While most of the refrigerator-sized, 1,400-pound tank of toxic ammonia coolant will burn up as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, officials said as many 15 pieces of the tank may survive – ranging anywhere from 1.4 ounces to 40 pounds.
If the pieces were to make it to the earth’s surface, they could slam to the ground at about 100 miles per hour.
It is unknown where the debris will land, but the chances it might land in a populated area are slim. Most likely, it would plunge into the sea.
“This has a got a very low likelihood that anybody will be impacted by it,” NASA space-station program manager Mike Suffredini told MSNBC. “If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn’t get too close to it.”
If any part of the tank were to re-enter over land, NASA advises members of the public to contact authorities if they think they have found remains.
The coolant tank is known as the Early Ammonia Servicer. Its purpose was as a coolant reservoir to boost coolant supply in the case of leaks. Recent upgrades made the tank obsolete.
Officials considered flying the tank back to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle, but determined that it would not withstand the trip.
So the tank was jettisoned by robotic arm on July 23, 2007. It took more than a year to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere.
“As a matter of course, we don’t throw things overboard haphazardly,” Suffredini said. “We have a policy that has certain criteria we have to meet before you can throw something overboard.”
Much larger unmanned Russian and European cargo ships are routinely allowed to decay in the Earth’s atmosphere. Recently, a European Space Agency ship called the Jules Verne that was the size of a double-decker bus burned up on re-entry.
And all sorts of other space debris routinely make their way into the stratosphere.
On Oct. 7, NASA recorded a asteroid the size of a kitchen table that burned up over Africa.