Kosmos 482's Final Descent Captured in One Haunting Image
More than 50 years ago in the early 1960s, the Soviet space program embarked on a bold new undertaking to go where no human had gone before.
The Venera mission to explore Earth's nearest orbital neighbor, Venus, is to date the only mission to have successfully landed spacecraft on the deeply inhospitable planet. But, of the 29 probes dispatched on the Venera mission, only 16 landed on or orbited the nearby world.
Most of the remainder got temporarily stuck in Earth orbit, falling back to the surface in the same year they were launched.
One probe, renamed Kosmos 482, took a little more time to return. Launched in March 1972, it spent just over 53 years stuck looping through space before finally plunging through our atmosphere on 10 May 2025 in an uncontrolled reentry that captured the global imagination.
Now, images captured by a German radar station present what is likely to be the last time we'll ever see the failed probe.
The data, captured by Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR on 8 May 2025, shows the tumbling roll of Kosmos 482 as it falls through space. As for where it ended up, that is currently unknown and is likely to remain unknown, unless more data becomes available.
"The Soviet-era object was last spotted over Germany at 08:04 CEST on 10 May by our colleagues at Fraunhofer FHR as it passed through the sky over their antenna. Because the descent craft was not spotted one orbit later, at the expected 09:32 CEST pass, the reentry can be assumed to have occurred between these two times," the European Space Agency explained on its tracking blog for the object.
"A precise time and location of its reentry have so far not been identified. We have not received any reports on direct visual observations of the final reentry or of any impacts on ground."
Currently, based on extremely detailed modeling, the best estimate for where it fell is somewhere in the Indian Ocean. This is probably for the best.
The conditions on Venus are perhaps most aptly described as hellacious. Surface temperatures average around 464 degrees Celsius (867 Fahrenheit), and atmospheric pressure is about 92 times higher than the atmospheric pressure at sea level here on Earth. Oh, and it rains sulfuric acid (which evaporates before it hits the ground, but any descending spacecraft still needs to get through the atmosphere).
All this to say that the Venera probes were built to be extremely sturdy, and scientists thought it likely that Kosmos 482 would at least partially survive the searing heat of reentry to hit the ground intact or in chunks. No one wants a Venus lander raining on their heads.
There is, unfortunately, still a lot of defunct junk circling our planet. Once the scope of the problem started to emerge, space agencies began to push a spacecraft design philosophy called Design for Demise. It is what it sounds like: objects sent into Earth orbit should be designed in such a way that they will harmlessly burn up on reentry.
However, not all manufacturers have adopted this approach, and we're still sending spacecraft into Earth orbit faster than they can come down. In addition, even spacecraft that are designed to burn up can release ozone-depleting chemicals into Earth's atmosphere.
Humanity has been treating low-Earth orbital space with reckless abandon. We were relatively lucky that the descent of Kosmos 482 caused no known problems, but it's a sobering reminder that even space, for us, is not limitless.
Sun Unleashes Most Powerful Flare We've Seen in 2025
Venus May Be More Earth-Like Than We Thought – And It's Still Moving
The Martian Night Sky Was Seen Turning Green in a Stunning First
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Unprecedented view of our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy revealed
A new composite image of the Andromeda Galaxy is offering an unprecedented view of our closest spiral galactic neighbor. Composed by NASA and international space partners, the image combines data from more than a dozen telescopes and ground-based observatories. Advertisement Located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, Andromeda, which is also known as Messier 31m has been a focus of the space community for more than a century, with early observations dating back to at least 1923 by astronomer Edwin Hubble. A key focus of ongoing studies has been the galaxy's evolution and structure, which shares many similar features with our own Milky Way. The new imagery weaves together data from X-rays captured by NASA's Chandra telescope, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft and several other missions to create a unique view of the galaxy's features. 'Each type of light reveals new information about this close galactic relative to the Milky Way. For example, Chandra's X-rays reveal the high-energy radiation around the supermassive black hole at the center of M31 as well as many other smaller compact and dense objects strewn across the galaxy,' NASA stated. Advertisement 3 The Andromeda galaxy is located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth. FOX Weather 3 On a clear night, some stars of the galaxy can be seen from Earth. FOX Weather Unlike the Milky Way, which is difficult to observe from within due to dust, gas and Earth's position inside it, Andromeda can be studied from a great distance, offering astronomers a more complete and unobstructed view. Despite the insights revealed by this image, many mysteries remain about the spiral galaxy, including the composition of invisible dark matter, how it interacts with other cosmic structures and how many stars and planets it truly contains. Advertisement Andromeda is believed to contain hundreds of billions of stars, leading scientists to theorize that it could also host trillions of planets. 3 A key focus of ongoing studies has been the galaxy's evolution and structure, which shares many similar features with our own Milky Way. FOX Weather Even with an army of advanced space technology available today, no telescope is powerful enough to overcome the vast distance and identify a single planet, or, for that matter, even a star, in detail within Andromeda. Advertisement NASA says its upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is among several missions that will help continue to shed light on galaxies like M31. Named after the agency's first chief astronomer, the high-tech observatory is expected to launch in 2027 and will feature a field of view 100 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Why does Mars look purple, yellow and orange in ESA's stunning new satellite image?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Despite being known as the Red Planet, Mars shows off its swirling yellows, oranges and browns in a new satellite photo from the European Space Agency (ESA). The Earth-toned surface also reveals an impact crater and four sneaky dust devils making their way across the region. The Rothko-like image was taken by a high-resolution camera on ESA's Mars Express orbiter and captures Arcadia Planitia, an area of Mars critical to research about the planet's past and its potential to house humans in the future. Northwest of the tallest volcanoes in the solar system, Arcadia Planitia is a region of intrigue. It's laden with solidified lava flows that are, at most, 3 billion years old. The area is also thought to host water ice close to the planet's surface, making it an area of interest when planning future missions to Mars, according to a statement from ESA. Arcadia Planitia is home to visiting "dust devils," short-lived columns of wind akin to small tornadoes. Dust devils form when the Martian surface warms the air just above it, leading the air to rise and pulling dust with it. The new image shows four dust devils as they snake their way across the plains of the region. Easy to overlook, you can spot them as whitish puffs of dust near the center of the image, straddling the boundary between the darker brown and lighter red parts of the plain. A large impact crater sits in the bottom right corner of the photo and measures 9 miles (15 kilometers) across, according to ESA. The formation of layered material around the crater is evidence that the ground encompassed notable amounts of water ice during impact, and lack of clear erosion of the crater dates it to relatively recently on the geological timeline. Related: Perseverance rover spots peculiar 'spider egg' rock on Mars — and scientists have no idea how it got there If you noticed that the image is blurry, you're discerning an effect of the wind on Mars. Gusts of air pick up and carry tiny particles of debris from the planet's surface, which creates a minor visual haze. RELATED STORIES —Mars rover captures first close-up photos of giant 'spiderwebs' on the Red Planet —Long, dark 'streaks' spotted on Mars aren't what scientists thought —NASA Mars satellite uncovers markings 'like paint dripping down a wall' on Martian surface The wind that causes the haze is also responsible for the reddish area at the top of the photo. The red region is covered in ridges called "yardangs," which are formed when wind erodes vulnerable rock and leaves the most resistant rock still standing. Below the red section is purplish-brown terrain, which has a high concentration of silicates and a low concentration of iron, the statement notes. The difference in colors also stems from properties of the sand, like density and size, which affect how the grains accumulate and travel across Mars.
National Geographic
a day ago
- National Geographic
Venus, explained
Quadruple Conjunction The moon, Venus, Mars, and the star Spica appear in a quadruple conjunction as seen from Azul, Argentina. From its scorching temperatures to its oddball rotation, there's a lot to learn about the second planet from the sun. On September 14, 2020, scientists announced the possible detection of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus. It's too early to say what's creating the gas, but if the result is confirmed, one possibility is that it was made by microbial life floating in the planet's thick atmosphere. Find out more about the tantalizing, if controversial, finding here. The first spacecraft to set mechanical feet on another planet landed on Venus. In the 1960s and '70s, the former Soviet Union's Venera probes plunged through the planet's punishing atmosphere, with a handful even sending back data from its rocky surface. In December 1970, for instance, the Venera 8 lander transmitted atmospheric data for more than 50 minutes after its turbulent touchdown. These early missions provided an important lesson: Venus is like a massive pressure cooker. Although the planet is the second closest planet to the sun, it's by far the hottest of the eight worlds in our solar system. Its thick atmosphere is mostly made of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid, which traps the sun's heat and creates a runaway greenhouse effect. Thanks to this atmospheric blanket, temperatures on Venus' surface can soar over 880 degrees Fahrenheit—hot enough to melt lead. The surface pressure is around 90 times that on Earth, which would feel like standing under about a half a mile of water. Wintertime doesn't even provide a reprieve from the heat. With an axial tilt of three degrees, Venus has just one season: hot. The only planet named after a female figure, Venus is a celestial oddball. Though its rocks are shades of grey, its atmosphere imparts an eerie orange glow to the landscape. Together with Mercury, it's one of the few planets in our solar system without a moon. And like Uranus, it turns on its axis in the opposite direction to the rest of our celestial family. Due to this retrograde rotation, if you were to stand on Venus' surface, the sun would rise in the West and set in the East. But don't count on catching many Venusian sunsets; the planet turns stunningly slow. A single day there takes 243 Earth days—longer than a Venusian year, which lasts 225 Earth days. And because the planet rotates in the opposite direction as its orbit, 117 Earth days pass between each sunrise and sunset. Hellish Earth twin Despite the strange and scorching conditions, Venus shares a surprising number of features with Earth. Measuring 7,520 miles across, Venus is roughly the same diameter as our home planet. It also has a similar structure, sporting a rocky surface and an iron core, although the planet doesn't rotate fast enough to generate an Earth-like magnetic field. Thousands of volcanoes dot Venus' surface, some of which may still be active. Volcanic rock from cooled lava covers most of its surface—the oldest of which dates back some 500 million years. Many mountains also rise into Venusian skies. Its largest, dubbed Maxwell Montes, stands 36,000 feet tall. The processes driving the formation of this network of formations is unusual, however. Venus doesn't appear to harbor a churning seismic engine like that on Earth, which drives our bumper-car network of tectonic plates. Yet the planet does appear to have a spidery network of breaks in its surface, hinting at an entirely new type of plate tectonics. Scientists suspect that for up to two billion years after it formed, the planet may have even been habitable—harboring liquid oceans on its surface. Fascination with what drove that transition from happy to hellish has led many scientists to campaign for more robotic visits to Venus. Light bringer Venus' dense cloud cover has benefits for us Earthlings. It reflects the sun's rays, making the planet the brightest in the night sky. It's often called the morning star or evening star because its bright, steady glow persists either around sunrise or sunset. Ancient peoples spotted these dazzling points in the sky and believed them to be two different objects, one that glows in the morning and another that glows in the evening. Similar to Mercury, Venus can occasionally be seen making a lazy trip across the sun's face, known as a transit. But while Mercury zips across the sun every 13 to 14 years, Venus transits are much more rare. The planet's orbit is almost a perfect circle but is slightly tipped relative to Earth's path around our star. This means it's incredibly hard for the sun, Venus, and Earth to align in the right way. The last time a transit of Venus happened was in 2012, and it won't happen again until 2117. Magazine for all ages starting at $25/year
