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A defunct German satellite is expected to fall to Earth this weekend, with experts predicting that up to 30 big pieces of the junked spacecraft could hit the planet. But exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery. The 2.7-ton Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, will likely plummet to Earth on Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 22 or 23), according to the latest update from the German Aerospace Center. "Currently, the re-entry date can only be calculated to within plus/minus one day," agency officials said in a statement. "This time slot of uncertainty will be reduced as the date...

The world was gripped by the Nasa UARS satellite that fell back to Earth last Saturday – and now there’s another that’s plummeting back from orbit. In late October or early November a Germany astronomy satellite – called ROSAT- will plunge uncontrolled back to Earth. While slightly smaller than UARS, the German satellite is expected to have more pieces survive re-entry. The German space agency estimated that it has a 1-in-2000 chance of hitting someone - higher than the 1-in-3,200 odds NASA gave for UARS. The German ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990, 'died' in 1998 and weighs two and...

Garching, Germany (SPX) Apr 30, 2008 By an enormous burst of gravitational waves that accompanies the merger of two black holes the newly formed black hole was ejected from its galaxy. This extreme ejection event, which had been predicted by theorists, has now been observed in nature for the first time. The team led by Stefanie Komossa from the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) thereby opened a new window into observational astrophysics. The discovery will have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution in the early Universe, and also provides observational confirmation of a key...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 14 X-Ray Moon Credit: J. Schmitt et al., ROSAT Mission, MPE, ESA Explanation: This x-ray image of the Moon was made by the orbiting ROSAT (Röntgensatellit) Observatory in 1990. In this digital picture, pixel brightness corresponds to x-ray intensity. Consider the image in three parts: the bright hemisphere of the x-ray moon, the darker half of the moon, and the x-ray sky background. The bright lunar...