UARS, a NASA satellite the size of a small bus, will re-enter Earth's atmosphere later this week and it has been grabbing a lot of attention as debris is predicted to make it to the earth's surface. In fact, there has been scientists who put the odds of debris of hitting someone at one in 3200. While this is still quite small, it is a statistically significant risk. Though the statistic has been misquoted by some reporters by saying that your chance of being it is one in 3200. Well, that's not quite true as the odds are for hitting one of the billions on the planet. So it's not as scary as it seems through some reports.
What you can expect though is a brilliant fireball somewhere over our planet. Best estimates place the re-entry time during the late hours of Sept. 23rd over a still-unknown region of Earth. Observers of the rapidly-decaying satellite say it is tumbling and flashing, sometimes almost as brightly as Venus. Video images are featured at http://spaceweather.com to show how the doomed satellite looks through a backyard telescope.
If you would like to catch a last glimpse of UARS streaking across the night sky should check SpaceWeather's Satellite Tracker for flyby times: http://spaceweather.com/flybys . You can also turn your smartphone into a UARS tracker by downloading our Simple Flybys app: http://simpleflybys.com
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