About North Rhine-Westphalia: When the burning battery block could appear as a trail of fire in the sky

Enlarge image

Re-entry of an object into the atmosphere (symbolic image)

Photo: ESA / NASA

A rare spectacle could be observed in the night sky on Friday evening: There is a possibility that a discarded battery pack from the ISS space station will cause a small trail of fire over parts of Germany when it re-enters the atmosphere on Friday evening.

"Around 7:20 p.m. it might be worth taking a look at the evening sky in the Lower Rhine and the Ruhr area," said the military head of the Bundeswehr's space situation center, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Richter, early on Friday afternoon.

At that point it was already dark and the sky was hopefully cloudless.

n-tv had previously reported on it.

Entry into the Earth's atmosphere will lead to such strong friction that most of it will generally dissolve into heat and light.

At around 7:20 p.m. the battery block will fly over North Rhine-Westphalia towards Cottbus in Brandenburg.

A small trail of fire is likely.

"It's something special, but nothing dangerous," explained Richter.

In the event of a possible further orbit of the earth, there would be a second overflight corridor of the battery block over Germany, which could lead over Baden-Württemberg.

Hit highly unlikely

An expert from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) also believes it is possible that the battery pack burning up in the atmosphere could be seen in the sky in some regions of Germany on Friday evening.

"There is a non-negligible probability that we can see or hear a light trail or a sonic boom over Germany," said DLR expert Jörn Helbert on Friday afternoon.

Based on the data available so far, both Richter and Helbert believe it is highly unlikely that debris could hit Germany.

If debris reaches the earth's surface, it would probably fall into the sea, said Richter, adding: "It's not for nothing that Earth is called the blue planet."

Richter expects new calculations of the discarded battery pack's course around the Earth to be available from the space situation center early on Friday evening.

It is operated jointly by the Air Force and DLR.

ani/dpa