

GOCE reenter earth with no idea of landing site - vinlimyh
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/GOCE/GOCE_gives_in_to_gravity

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exDM69
The title of this post is misleading and inaccurate. The original title was
"GOCE gives in to gravity".

Further, the post says: "GOCE satellite reentered Earth’s atmosphere on a
descending orbit pass that extended across Siberia, the western Pacific Ocean,
the eastern Indian Ocean and Antarctica."

While this may seem like a rather wide area, there's still a very good idea
where the debris re-entered. "No idea" is very far from the truth. Given that
it is known which orbit it fell on, that already excludes most of the Earth's
surface area. What is left is a narrow, sinusoidal line (the ground track),
which is a rather good estimate where it fell. As far as I know, there are no
better observations (ie. radar tracking) available, but we've still got a
decent estimate.

Please change this shameful link bait title to better match HN guidelines
about post submissions.

~~~
nknighthb
It's even less accurate than you think. Its reentry was photographed from the
Falklands.

[http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2013/11/11/goce-
burning-l...](http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2013/11/11/goce-burning-last-
orbital-view/)

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lotsofcows
This has hit a couple of new sites I read but I'm still not sure what the
story is.

Something that was never intended to land doesn't have a landing site. In
related news, my can of coke doesn't have a landing site either.

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deletes
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702472)

[http://www.n2yo.com/](http://www.n2yo.com/) says: GOCE has re-entered the
atmosphere

Here is a good description on what happened:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/satellite-falls-
ear...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/satellite-falls-earth-death-
dive_n_4252796.html)

