Satellite re-entry believed to be in Persian Gulf
By Jennifer Ellis
FLORIDA TODAY

MELBOURNE - NASA scientists believe the debris from a 7,000-pound science satellite smacked into the Earth's atmosphere and rained down over the Persian Gulf - a few thousand miles from where they first predicted it would plummet.
Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer. NASA image.

Current predictions show the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer or EUVE coming in at 11:25 p.m. EST in the northeast portion of the Persian Gulf. The re-entry coordinates are 28.2 degrees north latitude and 50.7 degrees east longitude.

NORAD is expected to confirm the re-entry within eight hours after the predicted impact. NASA will issue a press release confirming the re-entry this morning.

"The object re-entered the atmosphere over central Egypt," a statement from U.S. Space Command said today. "The object was not designed to survive re-entry intact and was expected to break up and mostly burn up in the atmosphere."

Launched June 7, 1992 from Cape Canaveral, the EUVE collected images of more than 1,000 celestial objects detected in the extreme ultraviolet part of the spectrum. The craft was designed to work for three years, but it was operational for eight. The observation program ended Jan. 31 last year.

-from http://www.floridatoday.com

EUVE site: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/euve/euvegof.html

Astronomy's Picture Of The Day:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/

Marcia