An unexpected visit from space will soon have the Earth, as a Soviet spacecraft aimed at landing in Aphrodite in the 1970s but failed, is expected to enter the atmosphere in the coming days.

This is the spacecraft Kosmos 482 launched by the Soviet Union in 1972 as part of a series of missions to Aphrodite. The spacecraft, however, never came out of the orbit of the Earth due to rocket dysfunction.

Most of it was destroyed within a decade, but part of the spacecraft according to experts remained orbiting the Earth, according to the Guardian.

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek, Delft Technology, and others believe that the landing capsule of the spacecraft – a spherical object in diameter (1 meter) – rotates around our planet in an extremely elliptical orbit for the last 53 years, losing gradually.

It is too early for the moment to know where the half -tone of metal can be “landed” or if it will survive the re -entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, according to experts in space trash monitoring.

LangBroek for his part predicts that spacecraft will come back to the atmosphere around May 10while considering that if it remains intact, it will crash at a speed of 242 km/h.

“Although not any danger can be ruled out, we should not worry much,” LangBroek said in a message of e -mail.

The object is relatively small and, even if it is not dissolved, “the risk is similar to that of a random meteor fall, which occurs several times each year. You are at greater risk of strucking you in your life, “he said.

The probability of the spacecraft hitting someone or something is small, the Dutch scientist added, but noted that “it cannot be completely ruled out”.

According to LangBroek, the spacecraft weight nearly 500kg It is very likely to survive the reassessment, as it was constructed to withstand a descent through the dense venue of Aphrodite atmosphere.

Experts, however, doubt whether the capsule parachute will work after so many years, and note that its thermal shield may have been eroded after so long in orbit.

As Jonathan McDowell, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Center, would be in an email, it would be better if the capsule thermal shield could not withstand to extinguish it, because otherwise it would “come back intact and we will have a half-tone metal object.”

The spacecraft could come back to the Earth’s atmosphere wherever between 51.7 degrees north and southern latitudethat is, at a distance from London and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, to almost the Cape Horn of South America. But as most of the planet is covered with water, “the chances of coming to an ocean are many,” LangBroek said.