NASA and the Defense Department have announced that a retired satellite named Rhessi, which was launched in 2002 to study the sun, is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and fall to
Earth on Wednesday night. However, the exact location of the satellite’s reentry is not being disclosed due to uncertainties surrounding when and where it will crash. Although most of the satellite is expected to burn up during reentry, some parts are expected to survive.
NASA has stated that the chances of anyone on Earth being harmed by the falling debris are low, estimated at about 1-in-2,467.
Rhessi, which stands for the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, studied solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun before it was decommissioned in 2018 due to communication problems.
The satellite captured high-energy X-ray and gamma-ray images and recorded over 100,000 solar events.
