Satellite of Death II Could Hit Earth on Friday

ROSAT, the German X-ray telescope satellite, will hit Earth sometime this weekend, but once again, we don't know when or where.

Just as some hosers are sending beer coolers into space, ROSAT, the German X-ray telescope/ Satellite of Death II, could smash back into Earth as early as this Friday. The German Aerospace Centre says ROSAT could break up into about 30 pieces weighing a total of 1.9 tons, which is a fair bit less than NASA's six-ton UARS satellite that crashed somewhere in the Pacific last month. Just like with the original Satellite of Death, observers have no idea where the flaming ball of destruction could land, or at what time, although they do know it will land somewhere between 53 degrees north and 53 degrees south. In other words, basically anywhere that isn't the Far North or the Antarctic. ROSAT was launched in 1990 but has been defunct since 1999 after it accidentally faced the sun, overheating the satellite and rendering it useless for the past decade.