Speculation regarding the crash of China's Tiangong-1 space station has been going on all month, but that will come to an end this week. The space station is set to fall into the Earth within the next few days.
The earliest estimates have Tiangong-1 crashing into Earth on Friday (March 30).
Tiangong-1's Fall
There has been a lot of news coverage for the better part of a month predicting where Tiangong-1 will fall. Predictions currently have the space station coming down to Earth within the next week. The earliest estimates have the station crashing into the planet by Friday, March 30.
China admitted in January 2018 that it lost control of the space station. It had previously lost contact with the space station in 2016.
The current window for the re-entry of Tiangong-1 has it coming in late on March 30 to the early morning of April 2. Tiangong-1 has been monitored by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. This agency predicts that it will fall to Earth between 43° N to 43° S latitude.
It is very unlikely that the debris from the space station will strike anyone. No one has ever died from being struck by space debris, there has been one person that has been struck. On its current path, the space station is likely to fall on locations closer to the northern latitudes.
There is a potentially highly toxic substance called hydrazine aboard the space station that could survive the reentry. People who come across debris from the space station are advised to stay away from it.
Watching Tiangong-1's Crash
There will be a webcast of the re-entry of Tiangong-1 on Wednesday (March 28), and it is set to begin at 8:00 a.m. EDT. It will provide views of the space station while it is still out in space. Determining where Tiangong-1 will fall will be complicated.
Since much of the Earth is uninhabited, there is a chance that the space station will land in a remote location such as the ocean. This would make it harder for people to see the crash since no one will be around. Even as little as 7 hours before the crash, there will still be an uncertainty of where Tiangong-1 will fall.
There will be changes in the sky in areas that are able to see the space station crash. Since the space station is tumbling, there will be tracks across the sky, and rapid changes in its brightness.
