The time and places on Earth where the Soviet space probe Kosmos 482 could impact

The Soviet spacecraft Kosmos 482, launched in 1972 to explore Venus, is returning to Earth. A technical failure left it trapped in Earth's elliptical orbit. The main body of the spacecraft fell to Earth in 1981, but the 476-kilogram lander remained in space, gradually spiraling downward. Forgotten for half a century , had it been successful, it would have become the ninth unmanned Soviet Venera mission to the second planet in the Solar System. It is now expected to enter Earth's atmosphere this weekend.

The thing is, this module has a heat shield that could help it survive its entry and reach Earth's surface partially intact. "This vehicle was built to be tough and withstand the Venusian atmosphere—with surface temperatures of 464°C and pressures of 105 atmospheres," Cathleen Lewis, an expert on international space programs and spacesuits at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, told WSJ.

According to the latest update from ESA's Space Debris Office, the capsule will fall to Earth this Saturday, May 10, at 08:16 UTC (10:12 Spanish time). However, there is an uncertainty of eight hours, which would extend the window to after six in the evening. Meanwhile, Marco Langbroek, an astronomer and satellite tracker at Delft University of Technology who has been observing Kosmos 482 for years, suggests a margin of error of 28 hours.

And estimates of its location by the U.S. Space Force placed the object this week over the Gulf of Oman, northeast of Africa and Borneo.

What remains a mystery is where it might land. This is because Kosmos 482 hurtles through space at over 27,300 kilometers per hour, until it reaches atmospheric friction.

Although Langbroek calculated that the lander could impact anywhere within the latitudes of 52 degrees north and 52 degrees south. That includes countries such as Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Greece. It also includes Russia, China, India, Japan, and African countries such as Egypt, South Africa, and Australia and New Zealand.

The spacecraft will be traveling at about 150 mph (240 kilometers per hour) on reentry when it hits whatever it hits, Langbroek estimated . “I don’t think there’s much left after that,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who maintains a public catalog of space objects, told The New York Times. “Imagine crashing your car into a wall at 150 mph (240 kilometers per hour) and seeing how much of it is left,” he added. The capsule was also designed with a parachute system to slow its descent, but McDowell considers it “completely impossible” for it to work today.

The heat of reentry would make Kosmos 482 visible as a bright streak. Scientists believe it is very likely to fall into the water, and the risk of injury on land is low. "I'm not worried; I'm not going to tell all my friends to go to the basement for this," Darren McKnight, a senior technician at LeoLabs, a company that monitors Kosmos-482 six times a day, told the NYT. Any pieces left behind would legally belong to Russia, and if they caused damage, Moscow would also be liable, although there has been no precedent for compensation in such cases.