Portugal is in the path of the Chinese space agency’s rocket falling uncontrollably towards Earth, confirms a map from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) released on Thursday. According to the document, Long March 5B (CZ-5B) must re-enter the atmosphere between July 30 and 31 and, at between 17 and 22 tons in mass, it is one of the largest man-made objects to plummet toward Earth in recent years.
Since the rocket’s path is not well defined, it is also not possible to know very far in advance where it will actually land. But EASA calculations based on a time window starting at 10:14:49 on Saturday and ending at 19:08:49 on Sunday indicate that Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Malta and Bulgaria could be hit by the rocketwhich had been released on July 24.
EASA advised all aviation to be alert to the latest information about the rocket and adapt action based on that data. It also advised all managing authorities to implement restrictions within a radius of 200 kilometers as long as the object flies over the country.
A little over a year ago in May 2021, another Chinese Long March 5B violently crashed to Earth. The 23-tonne rocket developed by China and left to drift around the planet Earth, re-entered the atmosphere and crashed at 3:24 am from mainland Portugal at coordinates 2.65°N, 72.47°E , which correspond to the Indian Ocean, right next to the Maldives.
The orbit that the rocket stage is making around the Earth is not completely circular; if it were, it would remain in space like a new moon traveling at hypersonic speeds. Instead of that, Long March 5B describes an oval orbit, explained at the time Rui Moura, professor at the Geophysical Institute and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto: sometimes it approaches the Earth and is 170 kilometers from mean sea level, other times it moves away and is 370 kilometers away. of altitude.
It turns out that the closer you get to the planet, the more you are attracted by gravity and, in the next translation you make, you will no longer be able to reach altitudes as high as before. More: it intersects with the few molecules that make up the rarefied outermost layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. They are few, yes, but enough to subject the rocket to a greater arthritic force, which slows it down. And it slows down so much that at one point the Long March 5B has no choice but to finally give in to the sudden attack of the earth’s atmosphere.
By the way, Atmospheric friction will generate heat, melting the outer panels and breaking the rocket into glowing pieces of metal. But the object is so robust that the titanium deposits and combustion chambers inside, made of stronger materials and protected by the outer tiles, could survive re-entry into the atmosphere and eventually fall into the sea, the most likely hypothesis, or on land. that would not be unheard of.
Source: Observadora
