UARS Update: Lookin' Good, Australia!

Twitter Feed (most recent on top):

UARS_Reentry UARS Reentry
RT @SPACEFLIGHT101: Indications are that UARS is down following its last perigee. Waiting for official words. #UARS

ztresearch Tom A. Warner
by UARS_Reentry
RT @mycatthesquee: People north of Edmonton AB Canada saying they saw something "like fireworks" and 3 lights falling at10:20 pm MDT #UARS

SchwartzNow Jeff Schwartz
by UARS_Reentry
Source? RT @BASEDDRAG: Getting a UNCONFIRMED report saying that #UARS may have gone down in Northern Quebec.

RT @JPMajor: RT @b0yle: RT @numbercrunchers: RT @newswatchcanada Some reports say #UARS has crashed in Canada -- northern Quebec or Labrador - not confirmed

dmerser91 weatherdude(DennisM)
BREAKING: @LadyGaga has found the #UARS debris and is making a new dress out of it. NASA working to confirm.

brx0 -b-
So #UARS might have burned up by now, according to the US Strategic Air Command, the folks who track Santa Claus every year.

NASA NASA
It's possible that #UARS is down by now. (Everybody OK out there?) We're waiting for confirmation from US Strategic Command.

UARS_Reentry UARS Reentry
#UARS over Hudson Bay, Canada now - fairly high 143 km (but unlit by the Sun) is it still up there?

OnScene OnScene Action Media
Feel like Charlie Brown waiting for the Great Pumpkin #UARS #outside

UARS_Reentry UARS Reentry
#UARS Sat 24 Sep 2011 4:15UT orbit 87.08 mins 124.7 x 129.5km Position 36.6N,135.7W alt=134.6km Unlit [0.06d] ~Reentry-0.2h+

TSKelso T.S. Kelso
@
@TKennebeck Should be visible at least the distance from Seattle to SF. Just passed that distance from Hawaii, but I didn't see it. :)

HarryTucker Harry Tucker
You know you're a geek when you're tracking the UARS satellite live as it returns to earth. #nasa #uars

Over Hawaii, heading for Canada.

UARS_Reentry UARS Reentry
#UARS approaching 128 km altitude above equator west of Kiribati in Pacific Ocean

UARS_Reentry UARS Reentry
#UARS Sat 24 Sep 2011 4:00UT orbit 87.09 mins 125.6 x 130.3km Position 14.0S,170.1W alt=127.1km Lit [0.05d] ~Reentry-0.1h+

UPDATE: Prob. less than 60 minutes to re-entry. Currently, UARS is over Aukland. Well, not any more but it was a second ago.

TSKelso T.S. Kelso
Next perigee @ 0530 UTC would put reentry north of New Zealand and east of New Guineau. Not much chance of seeing it there.

A significantly more precise estimate has been issued by CORDS regarding the re-entry of the UARS satellite.

The estimated time is 5:10 UTC, which is over an hour later than the last estimate. The error on this estimate is 2 hours either way.

This results in the following:

The blue and yellow line is the orbital track before and after estimated re-entry. The ticks along the line are five minute intervals.

There is a hash mark on the lower right part of the graphic with an orange circle around it. That is where the satellite will be at 5:10 UTC. The blue line runs up to that point, the yellow line follows it.

Think of the hash mark at 5:10 as the estimated time, and the blue and yellow lines being the before and after two hour long error estimate. So yes, this thing could come down anywhere along this set of orbital tracks.

I think the eastern most yellow line coming from the messy bit where the orange circle is shows the track if the satellite comes down late. People in southeastern Australia, it would seem, have a good chance of a show. It will be daylight there.

North America, Africa, and Australia as well as countless island nations and such are in the track. Europe, Asia, and Central and South America are off the hook. A reasonable guess would be southern or southeastern Africa, Australia, or maybe Canada for most likely land masses, but most likely somewhere in the ocean.