Accurate fall point of German satellites

After many predictions about whether the German satellite could fall in Southeast Asia or deep in the Chinese plateau, scientists finally located the grounding position of Rosat.

>>>Rosat satellite "can fall into the Indian Ocean"

The densely populated cities of Asia have all escaped the collision with large pieces of the Rosat at the weekend. ROSAT penetrates the Earth's atmosphere at 1:50 am Sunday (GMT) just above the Bay of Bengal in South Asia. However, it is unclear how many pieces of Rosat have fallen into the sea, the German Space Center said.

According to the AP , this 21-year-old satellite has basically been burned as soon as it collides with the atmosphere. Even so, there are still 30 fragments with a total weight of 1.87 tons that can 'survive' through this fire test phase and plunge into the sea.

Since the ROSAT is an old satellite, there is no control system, so the ground was unable to communicate with it, and could not control the satellite's falling direction.

Earlier, disclosed on Space.com , expert Jonathan McDowell of Harvard-Smithsonian Astronomical Center said that two million Chongqing and Chengdu cities of China are just a few minutes away from the satellite's expected fall northeast.

Rosat was launched into space in 1990 and 'retired' in 1999 after contributing significant information to the study of new black holes and stars.

Last month, a failed NASA satellite, UARS, fell into the South Pacific. Although it does not cause any damage to humans and people, the falling range of debris is 800km wide.