Satellite weighing as much as adult rhino to crash through Earth's atmosphere today (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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A satellite will likely make an uncontrolled return through Earth's atmosphere today, according to the latest estimates from the European Space Agency.

It says ERS-2, which weighs about as much as an adult male rhinoceros, is expected to re-enter at about 11:32 a.m. EST — plus or minus 4.6 hours. The agency can't predict exactly when and where the satellite will re-enter because its return is "natural."

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[-] Sentrovasi@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago

To be fair, I actually find it more difficult to visualise 1500kg than a rhino (I just don't normally interact with things on that scale), so it does help me in terms of knowing how big the satellite roughly is.

[-] Fenrisulfir@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago

It would be an avg car

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

You dont normally interact with rhinos either.

[-] Sentrovasi@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago

But I know what one looks like, and I go to the zoo fairly regularly. I don't know what a 1500kg weight looks like, because even for the things which are 1500kg, it's not normally its defining characteristic.

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

A car is in the 1500 to 2000 kg range

[-] Sentrovasi@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago

TIL :)

[-] Noodle07@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

It's about a heavy car to a truck, that's way easier to visualize a car than a rhino even without using metric

[-] Sentrovasi@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

Yeah, agreed, but to be fair all of this is no longer criticism about why they didn't use the metric system and actually acknowledges that people need visualisation sometimes.