The European satellite ERS-2, which completed its Earth observation mission 13 years ago, burned up in the atmosphere on Wednesday. This was reported by the European Space Agency (ESA). The remaining remains ended up in the Pacific Ocean.
According to the European Space Agency, the satellite returned to the atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean between Alaska and Hawaii at 6:17 pm Belgium time. The organization reports on this on messaging platform X (formerly Twitter). The space agency had previously said that there was a possibility that some of the body’s remains would fall in densely populated areas, but that there was no “danger.”
The return operation, a rare event for ESA, began in 2011. The goal was to prevent satellite debris from posing a danger to active satellites or the International Space Station (ISS) in the event of accidental destruction during its orbit around Earth.
The European Space Agency launched two almost identical Earth remote sensing satellites in the 1990s with the aim of observing Earth from space. They have been used primarily for research into weather, climate and the environment and, among other things, imaging floods, earthquakes and forest fires.
ERS-2 was launched on April 21, 1995, but completed the mission in 2011. Since then, ESA has done its best to ensure that the satellite can safely reenter the Earth’s atmosphere.
look. A Chinese rocket landed near the house after launching the satellite
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