Area in UK that could be affected as 50-year-old spaceship set to crash back to Earth anytime now

A very old Soviet spaceship, called Kosmos 482, is about to fall back to Earth after more than 50 years in space. It was originally sent into space in 1972 with the goal of reaching Venus, collecting some data, and sending it back. But the mission failed.

The spaceship never even made it out of Earth’s orbit. Since then, it has just been circling the planet over and over again, stuck up there as a reminder of a mission that didn’t work.

Now, it’s finally coming back down. Experts say it could crash to Earth around May 10, although it’s really hard to know the exact day or time.

That’s because it’s moving incredibly fast in space, and even a small change in the timing of its fall could completely change where it lands. Because of that, scientists can’t say for sure where it will land, only that it will happen soon.

The spaceship’s orbit puts it somewhere between 52 degrees north and 52 degrees south of the equator. That’s a very large area that stretches across many countries and oceans.

Part of the UK is included in this possible impact zone specifically, the southern parts of England and Wales. The rest of the UK is completely outside of the risk area, so there’s no danger for those places.

The same risk area also includes places as far away as the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. In other words, the potential crash zone stretches across a big portion of the Earth. This wide range makes it more likely that Kosmos 482 will fall into the ocean, since water covers most of the planet.

Still, just in case it hits land, experts have looked at what kind of damage it might cause. Dr Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer, said there’s about a 1 in 10,000 chance that it will actually hit a person.

That’s a very small risk. But if it does hit something on the ground, it could cause some damage. It might crash with the same power as a truck going 50 miles per hour. That’s enough to smash a car or damage a house, but it won’t cause any huge disaster or widespread destruction.

It’s possible it could break windows or dent roofs, but it’s not something that would wipe out a town or anything like that. The worst-case scenario would be like what happened in 2013 when a meteorite exploded over Russia. That event shattered windows and damaged buildings, but no one died. The same level of damage might happen if Kosmos 482 crashes in a populated area.

Most likely, though, the spaceship will fall harmlessly into the sea or into a remote area where no one lives. For the people living in southern England and Wales, it’s just a tiny risk, and nothing to get too worried about. It’s one of those rare space events where something from the past suddenly comes back to Earth. You’d have to be extremely unlucky for a piece of it to land anywhere near you.