pound decommissioned satellite that was lazily falling toward the Earth over the past two days finally came down around midnight Friday, NASA said early Saturday. The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell back to Earth between 11:23 P.M. Friday and 1:09 A.M. Saturday, NASA said in an update on its website. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite penetrated the A.M.sphere over the Pacific Ocean, the agency said. It is not yet known when exactly the satellite hit Earth, and whether it ended up in water or on land, NASA said. The satellite took longer than expected to return to Earth after 20 years in space. Unpredictable, and completely out of control, the satellite was expected to shower 26 pieces of space junk across a 500-mile linear crash zone. Most of its parts are believed to be burned up. At 10:30 P.M. Friday, NASA said the satellite's reentry into the Earth's A.M.sphere was expected between 11:45 P.M. Friday and 12:45 A.M. Saturday, and its path was over Canada, Africa and the Atlatic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The risk to public safety is very remote. Small variations in reentry timing means vast differences as to where UARS would come down. The satellite, designed to help scientists understand climate change, circled the planet at a 57-degree inclination to the Equator, a path that took it every hour and a half from the frozen north to the frigid seas beyond the southern coast of Australia — and back again.
