“Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?”, asked Billy Bragg. Hard to say, but anyone living across a broad swathe of the planet could be forgiven doing a bit of wishing – and finger-crossing – this evening.
It is later today or in the early hours of Saturday that the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, owned by NASA and in Earth orbit since 1991, will make its re-entry – and, so the various agencies involved tell us, will break into a couple of dozen pieces, several of which will fail to burn up and will therefore crash down on land or into the sea somewhere.
That “somewhere” is significant, because these are big bits (“the heaviest weighing about 158kg,” according to the BBC, adding that it is “equivalent to a very large person”), and will be travelling topside of 300 kilometres per hour. If one of those chunks hits you or your house – we’re talking fuel tanks, batteries and wheel rims – then it is going to spoil any evening plans you might have had.
The re-entry, and whatever smashes and crashes ensue, will take place between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south, and the chance of anyone in that huge area being hit is said to be 1 in 3,200. This is of particular significance to Scotland, because the northern limit of what NASA believes to be the impact belt – the 57 degrees north line of latitude – passes through the Highlands.
From west to east, 57° N cuts through Barra, just misses the southern tip of Skye, then reaches the mainland around Mallaig – which sits just (and only just) in the safety zone.
From there, it slices sideways across the Highlands: Invergarry is “safe”, Spean Bridge isn’t; Newtonmore is “safe”, Dalwhinnie isn’t (while Laggan looks very borderline-ish). Braemar is just safe, but Ballater or Aboyne – being a little further north – are better bets for safety, as indeed is Aberdeen (57 degrees 9 minutes north). You could do worse than dig out your hard hat and get ready to dive under the table if you live in Stonehaven (56 degrees 57 minutes north), which might get its Hogmanay fireballs three months early.
So, should any precautions be taken – and is there any indication of an exodus from Pitlochry to Plockton, or from Uddingston to Ullapool? It appears not. Despite the wide and often puzzling variety of trunk-road information signs to be seen these days – “Watch your speed”, “Think don’t drink”, “Don’t mow the lawn while driving” – there haven’t as yet been any reports of signs reading “Quick! Get to 57N asap!”, or “Don’t drive a soft-top until Sunday”.
To be serious for a moment, a Transport Scotland spokesperson, when asked, said there was a “watching brief”, an overall government-based monitoring of the situation, as with any large-scale and hard-to-predict crisis. “Resilience plans” are in place with regard to space-debris impacts, as they are with severe winter weather, foot and mouth outbreaks etc.
Thus far, there has been no comment from Highland Council – nor has there been anything from The Caledonian Mercury’s contact in Braemar, who has been asked if there is any sign of an influx of nervous refugees into the village from the Glenshee ski centre or Blairgowrie (both dangerously far south), or if there are plans for a “No Satellite Here” party in Braemar village hall this evening.
The people who might have had the most interesting input on this – the Scottish Space School at Strathclyde University – have perhaps wisely declined to say much. Their coordinator, Gordon McVie, would only say: “This is not something we would have a view on; like everyone else we follow it closely on the NASA website.”
Fair enough. It’s really just a case of watching the tracking reports, keeping an eye on the heavens – and perhaps heading up to Dingwall or Durness for the weekend, just to be on the safe side…
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