Chinese Tiangong to Reenter Atmosphere in a Month

[C C]

Now it's 10:30 UTC on April first (Easter!) plus or minus 16 hours.

This falling 8 1/2  ton "heavenly palace" thing is getting to be like wondering what craziness is going to happen on the 7-year anniversary of October 14 (or October 15 in Australia) in the final episodes of *The Leftovers*. Long old news to everybody else who kept up with past HBO offspring. But after being stuck temporarily and needlessly at a mid-destination spot a few weeks back with nothing else to do but belatedly binge-watch that series (minus seeing all of the final season), I've only now coincidentally gotten around to being receptive to watching the last two episodes of the latter (some time or another) to find out.

- - -

[Yazata]

Now it's Monday April 2, 0200 UTC plus or minus 7 hours.

So if you're in England, it should fall somewhere on Earth between 7pm Sunday and 9 AM Monday.

Since California's PDT is (I believe) UTC - 7 hours, the Heavenly Palace's fall should be between noon on Sunday and 2 AM Monday my time.

But that's a provisional estimate as of now. They keep pushing the time back later and later. This thing doesn't want to return to Earth (who could blame it?)

http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-p...1-reentry/

[Yazata]

It's moved forward a little and the window has narrowed to 4 hours.

April 2nd, 2018 00:18 UTC plus or minus 2 hours.

So in England it looks like 10:18 PM tonight to 2:18 AM Monday morning, somewhere on Earth.

Here in California, that should be 3:18 PM this afternoon (about 3 hours from now!) to 7:18 PM tonight.

It's currently over Burma, heading northeastwards over China, South Korea and Japan, then across the north Pacific and southwards over the Pacific parallel to the west coasts of both North and South America, before crossing South America over Chile and southern Argentina. Dunno where it goes after that.

Time's getting short for the Heavenly Palace.

[Yazata]

The US Space Command is reporting that the Heavenly Palace reentered the atmosphere a short time ago over the South Pacific. While it's probable that some pieces survived to reach the surface, it's highly unlikely that they struck anything of value since the entry occurred over the ocean. Based on the Aerospace Corporation's webpage, the impact point appears to have been to the west off the Chilean coast out towards Easter Island. (Isn't that appropriate for Easter day!)

https://www.space.com/40101-china-space-...ashes.html

http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-p...1-reentry/

[Image: DZvXiubWsAIhz48.jpg:large]

[Yazata]

Jonathan McDowell seems to think that it came down northwest of Tahiti in Polynesia somewhere. If so, there are more islands around and somebody might have captured some cellphone video of it burning up in a fireball like a bolide.

https://twitter.com/planet4589

[Image: DZvZQ2BX4AA7VKQ.jpg]