Official representatives of the European Space Agency reported that “the researcher of the gravitational field and steady ocean currents”, the “Goche” satellite, considered among the scientific community as the most beautiful satellite ever created by man, lives its last days.
Launched in 2009, Goce spent in space, carrying out his main mission (the study of the gravitational field of the Earth), three times more time than originally planned. During its operation, the satellite created a highly detailed map of the fields of the Earth, giving the scientific world a fresh look at the internal structure of our planet.
In the middle of last October, the satellite ran out of fuel and it slowly began to descend from its orbital trajectory at an altitude of 224 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. ESA experts believe that Goce will burn in the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere on the night of November 10-11. Scientists indicate that the process of disintegration of the satellite into parts will begin at an altitude of about 80 kilometers, but at the moment ESA researchers do not have the opportunity to determine the possible place of the potential fall of its fragments.
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