You’re More Apt To Win Powerball Than Be Hit By Space Station Chunk

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space

A Chinese space station is falling back toward Earth and should be re-entering the atmosphere in early April. The trajectory of the space station, which is about the size of an RV, has it falling back to the ground along southern Michigan’s latitude. That said, experts are trying to calm people down about the chances of any part of the space station not burning up in the atmosphere and slamming into people or buildings in the state.

“Most of it’s going to burn up,” says Michael Narlock, the head of astronomy at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. “It’s got a couple of solar panels and those will burn up, and most of the structure of the space station will burn up as well. There might be some debris that makes it through the re-entry process, but the chances of a person being struck is one in a trillion. You actually have a better chance of winning the Powerball than being struck by anything.”

While Chinese scientists don’t have any control over the craft, he thinks almost all of it will be vaporized and we’ll instead maybe just see a streak of light.