A renowned Irish space reporter has warned of a small - but very real - chance that part of a rocketship is going to crash land in the Rebel County.
New data shows the 500kg landing capsule of Kosmos 482, a Soviet rocket that had failed launch in 1972, may land in Cork's section of the Beara Pennisnusla shortly before 9am tomorrow.
The craft never reached Venus and has been stranded in orbit around Earth for over 50 years.
It has a one metre-wide titanium shell lined with thermal insulation, and weighs 495 kilograms.
Space commentator Leo Enright says the rocket could be visible at around 8.30am tomorrow morning:
"People should be watching out tomorrow morning at 8.30am, have a look at the sky, if you're in Cork city it will appear directly above you if you're standing on Patrick's Street in Cork.
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek predicts the failed spacecraft will re-enter about 10 May. He estimates it will come crashing in at 150mph (242km/h), if it remains intact.
“While not without risk, we should not be too worried,” Langbroek said in an email.
The object is relatively small and, even if it doesn’t break apart, “the risk is similar to that of a random meteorite fall, several of which happen each year. You run a bigger risk of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime,” he said.
The chance of the spacecraft actually hitting someone or something is small, he added. “But it cannot be completely excluded.”
The Soviet Union launched the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 in 1972, one of a series of Venus missions. But it never made it out of Earth orbit because of a rocket malfunction.
Most of it came tumbling down within a decade. But Langbroek and others believe the landing capsule itself — a spherical object about 3ft (1 metre) in diameter — has been circling the world in a highly elliptical orbit for the past 53 years, gradually dropping in altitude.
It’s quite possible that the 1,000lb-plus (nearly 500kg) spacecraft will survive re-entry. It was built to withstand a descent through the carbon dioxide-thick atmosphere of Venus, said Langbroek of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
