China’s Tiangong-1 space station burns up in Earth’s atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean

The decommissioned space station's long-forecasted return to Earth finally happened.
 By 
Miriam Kramer
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

China’s Tiangong-1 space station is officially no more.

According to multiple agencies tracking the space station’s movements, 34-foot-long spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at 8:16 p.m. ET above the southern Pacific Ocean.

While a few of the charred bits of Tiangong-1 -- which translates to Heavenly Palace -- may have made it all the way to the ground, it’s still unclear exactly where they may have landed. In all likelihood, the bits of space debris wouldn’t have landed in a populated area.

The odds of being hit by a falling piece of space junk about about 1 in 300 trillion, according to some estimates.

Until today, it wasn’t exactly clear when or where Tiangong-1 would re-enter. Tracking a fast-moving, uncontrolled spacecraft flying around the Earth every 90 minutes isn’t exactly easy.

As the day progressed, however, trackers managed to slowly narrow down where the station would fall.

Tiangong-1, which launched to space in 2011, got a lot of attention for its uncontrolled fall back through the atmosphere. Trackers have been keeping a close eye on the station’s descent for weeks, with the European Space Agency issuing updates every day for about the past week.

The station was visited by crews of taikonauts -- China’s astronauts -- over the course of its life in orbit. The Tiangong-2 station, Tiangong-1’s replacement, launched to space in 2016.

Both of the Heavenly Palace station are thought to be precursors to a large station China is planning to launch sometime in the 2020s.

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Miriam Kramer

Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.

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