. . . Eyes on the Skies . . .

"Yeah hi, I'll be a little late today. My car got hit by a satellite from outer space"

(Pause)

"What do you mean you don't believe me?"

Remember in that movie Joe Dirt, I think it was David Spade who hauled around during the whole movie, what he thought was a meteorite, only to find out it was a 300 lb chunk of frozen doo doo called a " Boeing Bomb " we will see where this next thing falls!

Your not saying the magic words as you rub your hands, are you DD?

So, . . . like, . . . yesterday NASA announces this big honkin' satellite, . . . as big as a bus ! ! ! , . . . won't fall onto the entire continent of North America. Whew, . . . that's cool; poor old DonDiego dodged a bullet, right?

Well, . . . NO !
At 10:30am EDT today those wise folks at NASA announce: "The satellite’s orientation or configuration apparently has changed, and that is now slowing its descent. There is a low probability any debris that survives re-entry will land in the United States, but the possibility cannot be discounted because of this changing rate of descent." [boldface added - DD]
Whatever happened to those guys who got the USA to the Moon 42 years ago ? These guys today can't even hit the Pacific Ocean ! ! !

Maybe Don Diego could provide for us a current map with the trajectory, time and possible impact sites (+/- 5,000 miles).


Rick

Umm, . . . no. But DonDiego is pretty sure his house is roughly in the middle of the likely impact-footprint. (This is one reason he has not given his address to NASA.)

Most of the websites tracking the satellite real-time are overloaded with lookie-loos apparently more important than poor old DonDiego, . . . but sometimes the little map near the bottom of this website, Track NASA's Falling Satellite, at least shows where the object-as-big-as-a-bus is.
As DonDiego types the satellite has just crossed the Equator heading south-southeast well north of New Zealand. It looks like in about 4½-orbits it'll be passing right over Appalachia; . . . perhaps DonDiego will see the brilliant fireball around dusk as the deadly missile hurtles towards his humble home.

It doesn't look like it's going over North America at all according to the "live" map.

What do the red and yellow dots mean on North America, South America respectively ?


Rick

The orbital-tracks only show the present orbit, and a little extra. The track is periodically updated to predict the next pass over the Earth; from the view displayed the track shifts about 800 miles-or-so West every orbit at America's latitude.

The red-dot on North America should be where whoever is spying on Rock'n Rick thinks Rock'n Rick's computer is. When the ever-changing satellite track lines up right over the red dot, Rock'n Rick's computer is in the path of destruction.
The yellow-"dot" on South America represents the Sun, and is located at that point on the Earth directly above which is the Sun.

: : : EDITED TO ADD : : :
The diagram is pretty small, but it looks like in something over 6 hours the satellite will be passing northeast (approximately) from Dallas to Chicago. Destruction of Cowboy Stadium would actually be pretty cool.

How close to Massachusetts is this thing passing/crashing over ???

Do you think that I should bring the herbs in off my back deck ?


Rick

I'D LEAVE HERB OUT ON THE BACK DECK. TELL HIM TO KEEP AN EYE OUT. LOL