Was it a meteor? A comet? No, it was a NASA satellite that was launched 56 years ago. A few days ago it was detected by an impact alarm network. It got closer to our atmosphere. However, the satellite that came back to Earth did not pose any danger. He had only reached the end of his life.
Look to the sky
Space surveillance networks crawl across the sky. They are looking for possible dangers to the planet. For example, space rocks that can explode or fall apart in the atmosphere. The person who discovered the satellite that reentered Earth on August 25th is the Asteroid Earth Impact Last Warning System. He is from the University of Hawaii. The Catalina Sky Survey, which is dependent on NASA, also noticed this. It was a small object on a collision route with Earth.
They performed precision orbit calculations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. They were compared with the counterpart institute of the European Space Agency (ESA). In this way, the type of object was confirmed.
They therefore concluded that it was not an asteroid. It was a small spaceship launched 56 years ago by NASA. Its name is “Orbiting Geophysics Observatory 1” (OGO-1). The satellite vanished this Saturday at 10:44 p.m. (Spanish time). It ended in a shower of smoking debris.
Clean up the room
OGO-1 was a 487 kilogram satellite that had been out of service since 1971. Since then it has lost altitude and is steadily approaching Earth. The less dense and higher layers of the atmosphere began to slow them down through friction. Thanks to the atmosphere, the device was destroyed. It crashed safely into the vast Pacific, 100 miles southeast of Tahiti.
The spacecraft entered service in 1964 when it reached its orbit over the equator. It was one of five satellites in his series designed to study the planet’s magnetic field, atmosphere and space weather.
After collecting data for five years, his job ended in November 1969. In November 1971 he retired from service.
Re-entry into the atmosphere is a common practice. It is used to take the satellites out of service. This reduces the problem of space debris. You know, if you can’t recycle … break it down in the atmosphere.
