T-minus one week until China's space lab crashes to EarthWhen Tiangong-1 rocketed into the sky in 2011, optimists hoped the space station - literal translation: "heavenly palace" - would be a model for a permanent fixture among the stars, a space laboratory that was among humankind's first footsteps in the Cosmos. So, when an out-of-control Tiangong-1 comes plummeting to earth in a superheated trail of plasma and space debris, it may literally be an April Fool's joke. READ MORE:* 'Heavenly Palace' will fall to Earth* Space rubbish hauler to become astronaut workroom* Three space station astronauts return to EarthOr, in the words of fear-allaying scientists, Tiangong-1 was experiencing an "uncontrolled reentry". "In the history of spaceflight, no known person has ever been harmed by reentering space debris," the Aerospace said in January. "Only one person has ever been recorded as being hit by a piece of space debris, and, fortunately, she was not injured."

Source: Stuff March 25, 2018 04:41 UTC