Good morning. A Soviet spacecraft from the 1970s could crash your Saturday barbecue—or rather, crash into it. At some point in the next day, Kosmos 482, which failed to land on Venus after it was launched 53 years ago, is expected to hurtle uncontrolled back to Earth. Unfortunately, scientists have no idea where this half-ton hunk of metal will land, but they project it could fall anywhere from 52 degrees north to 52 degrees south (where virtually all of you are reading this from).
But here’s why you can probably go about your weekend undisturbed: The creaky Kosmos 482 could burn up upon reentry, and more importantly, most of the Earth is water, so the likelihood that it cannonballs into an ocean is far more likely than it plunking down on your head
