London, Jan 13 (ANI): Fragments of Russian spacecraft, Phobos-Grunt, will come crashing down to earth on Sunday, after its failed mission to Mars, space experts have revealed.
The minibus-sized spacecraft, aimed at exploring Phobos, one of Mars's two moons, became stranded in a low orbit around Earth since losing contact with engineers soon after its launch on November 8.
Most of its mass is expected to burn up as the craft re-enters the atmosphere but 20 or 30 pieces of small debris together weighing around 200kg could hit Earth.
In a normal re-entry about 20 per cent of the space junk's mass would be likely to reach Earth, but in the case of Phobos-Grunt it could be even less because it contains large quantities of unused fuel which will burn or dissipate in the atmosphere, the Telegraph reported.
In theory the remains could land anywhere south of Watford or north of the Falkland Islands, with a sea landing most likely because of the size of the oceans compared to the continents.
But scientists have insisted that observers would be unlikely to even see the debris crash to Earth unless it flew directly overhead in a clear sky, and that the chances of anyone being injured were completely minimal.
"The chances are so low - it certainly doesn't keep me awake at night worrying about the probability of a piece of space debris coming through my roof," Prof Richard Crowther of the UK Space Agency said.
However, he also asserted that international space agencies are required to discuss the amount of disused equipment being left in Earth's orbit amid fears that space junk could reach a "critical mass" where damaging collisions with active satellites and spacecraft become unavoidable. (ANI)
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