Space junk to strike Earth

by The Canadian Press - Castanet  Sep 20, 2011 / 6:05 am

An old NASA satellite about the size of a bus will come smashing into Earth later this week and the U.S. space agency says there shouldn't be anything to worry about. The good news is the satellite has an estimated 3,200-to-one chance of killing or injuring someone.  The bad news: the debris could come down in Canada.  Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario says current trajectory has the satellite landing anywhere between the globe's 57th parallel in the north and 57th parallel in the south. That means the only places in Canada outside the potential impact zone are the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.  But if those 3,200-to-one odds aren't reassurance enough Canadians can rest even easier knowing that not only can the course change, all indications suggest it's most likely to land in water. "It can't be pinned down very accurately at this stage," Brown said in an interview. "Odds are it's (coming down) over the ocean, but right now it's still not known."