ROSAT Satellite – Where it Hits Earth?

The German ROSAT Satellite had entered the earth’s atmosphere, but there is no confirmation yet as to where it hit earth.

The German Aerospace Center said the satellite entered the atmosphere between 0145 and 0215 GMT Sunday (9:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. Saturday EDT) and would have taken only 10 or 15 minutes to hit the ground.

According to a pre-calculated path it could have been above Asia, possibly China, at the time of its re-entry.

The 2.69-ton (2.4 metric ton) scientific ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990 and retired in 1999 after being used for research on black holes and neutron stars and performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.