RHESSI ’s time in electron orbit officially came to an end on Wednesday as NASA ’s defunct Sun - observing satellite plunge through Earth ’s air , in all probability burn up in a fiery fire .
The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager ( RHESSI ) space vehicle reentered Earth ’s atmospheric state on April 19 at 8:21 p.m. ET , fly over the Egyptian - Sudanese border on a flight towards northern Egypt , Jonathan McDowell , an uranologist at the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , wroteon Twitter based on data from the U.S. Space Force .
“ The Department of Defense confirmed that the 660 - hammer spacecraft re - entered the atmosphere over the Sahara Desert region , at approximately 26 degrees longitude and 21.3 degree latitude , ” NASA said in an updatedstatement . The space agency “ expected most of the spacecraft to burn off up as it travel through the atmosphere , but for some components to survive re - entry . ” to begin with , NASA had say that the risk of harm to multitude on the ground was approximately 1 in 2,467 .
An artist’s concept of the RHESSI spacecraft in orbit.Gif: NASA
accord to the US Space Force , NASA ’s put out RHESSI satellite reentered over 26E 21N ( Sudan / Egypt molding ) head NE over southern Egypt , at 0021 UTC Apr 20.pic.twitter.com/p5nTWLvFG1
— Jonathan McDowell ( @planet4589)April 20 , 2023
before , there was speculation that RHESSI had reentered over Kyiv after a bright trice of light was observe over the Ukrainian working capital on Wednesday Nox , The Guardianreported . The Ukrainian Air Force claim that the bright flash was get by the NASA satellite . NASA officials later denied the claim , saying that RHESSI was in fact still in orbit at the meter the flash of light go on over Ukraine , according to theBBC .
“ The shining twinkling seen over Kyiv has NOTHING TO DO with the reentry of NASA ’s RHESSI artificial satellite , whose arena does n’t come within thousands of kilometers of Ukraine , ” McDowell wrote on Twitter . Instead , the Ukrainian space office later hypothesise that the bright light may have been due to a meteorite entering through Earth ’s atmosphere , the BBC account .
in the beginning this hebdomad , NASA announced that its retired satellite was going toreenter Earth ’s standard pressure on Wednesday . The planet conclude its mission in 2018 and has been in a stable depressed Earth orbit ever since . RHESSI ’s arena had been tardily degrading as atmospheric drag tugged on the spacecraft , gradually lower its orbit until it lastly match its fiery death . The ballistic capsule likely burned up during its reentry and there are no news report ( yet ) of RHESSI ’s rubble fall to Earth ’s surface .
RHESSI establish on February 5 , 2002 on a delegation to monitor solar flare pass — dramatic eruptions of radiation that the Sun fling out into blank ( and sometimes towards Earth ) . During its 16 - year - mission , RHESSI observe more than 75,000 solar flares .
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