Rosat 'satellite may fall to the Indian Ocean'

Fragments of the German satellite may have fallen into the Indian Ocean after it crashed into the atmosphere yesterday.

>>>Satellite ROSAT rushes into the earth's atmosphere

Rosat satellites fall into the earth's atmosphere during the time from 1:45 and 2:15 on October 23 at GMT (8:45 and 9:15 on the same day in Vietnam). Like the fall of the UARS satellite in September, the scientists could not accurately guess the location where Rosat plunged. But if the fall time is correct, perhaps the Rosat fragments have plunged into the Indian Ocean. If they rush to the mainland, they may fall to Myanmar and China, the BBC said.

What draws attention to the fall of ROSAT is that its total mass of unburnt debris could reach more than 1.6 tons - much larger than UARS's half-ton figure.

Rosos is a space telescope capable of detecting X-rays of Germany. It has a large mirror made of synthetic carbon. Glass was launched into space to search for X-rays in space in 1990. It ceased operation in 1999 after discovering about 100,000 sources of X-rays in the universe. The mirror and its supporting structure are the largest of the 30 fragments from the Rosat.

'So far we have designed artificial satellites so that they can exist in harsh cosmic environments. We haven't thought much about them going down to Earth. But in the future we will have to pay attention to that and perhaps artificial satellites should be designed so that most of them burn in the air , 'he said.