Space agencies do not match

The failed Soviet ship Kosmos 482, Designed to land in Venushas entered the earth’s atmosphere after 53 years giving tumbos around our planet. However, nobody knows where exactly has fallen.

Context. As a twin of the famous Venera 8 capsule, Kosmos 482 was intended for Venus, but was caught in an elliptical orbit around the earth due to a rocket failure that in 1972 promoted it to space.

Since then, atmospheric friction has gradually reduced its altitude, which has culminated today in its inevitable fall. Despite The reentry was an expected eventthe different space agencies and follow -up organisms handle varied predictions.

According to Russia. The Russian Space Agency Roscosmos He published in Telegram that the Kosmos 482 probe had entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at 06:24 UTC on Saturday. He did it in the Indian Ocean, some 560 kilometers west from the island of Andamán del Medio. Or as some rushed to point out, west of The famous Northern Sentinel Islandthat of isolated indigenous people.

According to Europe. For its part, the European Space Agency Space Waste Office Place the reentry between 06:04 UTC and 07:32 UTC. The ESA radars in Germany did not detect the probe after that time, so the reentry is confirmed, although no direct visual observations or ground impacts have been recorded.

The central prediction of ESA points at 06:16 UTC, which would place the reentry south of Turkmenistan, on the border with Iran and Agfanistan.

According to the United States. The United States space force published through its Space-Track system that the Kosmos 482 reentry had taken place between 05:20 and 05:44 UTC over the Pacific Ocean.

This prediction not only It is not consistent With the ESA and Roscosmos reports, but it is invalidated by the detection of the ship over Germany at 06:04 UTC, according to ESA radar data.

Where is the capsule. The Dutch Langbroek Satellites tracker It is “reasonably consistent” with its own modelwhich makes a difference of just 15 minutes.

That fell into the Indian Ocean, relatively far from any populated area Already daylighthe explains that we have not seen visual material from the reentry.

It could be floating. If the capsule survived the reentry, the surface of the Earth hit a speed of about 240 km/h, generating a kinetic energy comparable to that of a meteorite between 40 and 55 cm.

The particular thing about this reentry is the robustness of the Kosmos 482 capsule, designed to survive accelerations of up to 300 g and pressures of 100 atmospheres in Venus. Not only is it plausible that you have survived. The space historian Pavel Shubin believes that, if he is intact, could be found floating In the ocean.

Image | Marco Langbroek

In Xataka | There is an old Soviet probe about to fall on earth. The disturbing thing is that it was designed to resist hell