© 2024 88.9 KETR
Public Radio for Northeast Texas
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Satellite Fell Into South Pacific Far From Land, NASA Says

That bus-sized Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite that fell back to Earth late last week broke up and spread its debris "over a broad, remote ocean area in the Southern Hemisphere, far from any major land mass," out in the South Pacific Ocean, NASA just reported.

The space agency adds that:

"The debris field is located between 300 miles and 800 miles downrange, or generally northeast of the re-entry point," which was "14.1 degrees south latitude and 189.8 degrees east longitude (170.2 west longitude)."

And, says NASA, it "not aware of any possible debris sightings from this geographic area."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.