4 ms·
"The reentry will occur between -51.6 degrees South and 51.6 degrees North" -> "We have no f** idea of where or when it will come down, but at least we can asse
by kimi 3y ago
"The reentry will occur between -51.6 degrees South and 51.6 degrees North" -> "We have no f** idea of where or when it will come down, but at least we can assess it won't hit Santa Claus".
- zipfelchappe 3y agoExactly. We can't calculate the re-entry of some batteries, but we managed to land on the moon half a century ago.
- kataklasm 3y agoThat's partly because the drag effect of the atmosphere depends on the solar activity. Meaning, depending solar activity an object will start aerobraking higher up or lower down in the atmosphere. That of course drastically impacts the time it takes the object to fall out of orbit and since we can't really predict solar activity we cannot precisely predict when nor where this battery pack will hit the ground.
- krallja 3y agoThe Moon landing was powered and had lots of telemetry. This is an uninstrumented, unpowered box that was released over three years ago.
- blueflow 3y agoGo to the nearest pond and skip rocks. Try to predict how many times a rock will skip. This is a fundamental problem with chaotic probability.
- superjan 3y agoYes, and: “which is now predicted for around 18:56 CET on 8 March +/- 0.4 day” Prediction specified down to the minute with but the error bars are measured in days.