China's Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the earth's atmosphere and burnt up over the middle of the South Pacific on Monday, the Chinese space authority said. The United States Air Force 18th Space Control Squadron, which tracks and detects all artificial objects in earth's orbit, said they had also tracked the Tiangong-1 as it re-entered the atmosphere over the South Pacific. It said in a statement they had confirmed re-entry in coordination with counterparts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Britain. China had said its re-entry would occur in late 2017 but that process was delayed, leading some experts to suggest the space laboratory was out of control. The Chinese tabloid Global Times said on Monday worldwide media hype about the re-entry reflected overseas "envy" of China's space industry.

Source: dna April 02, 2018 02:08 UTC