New Prediction for When, Where Space Station Will Crash

A 9.6-ton Chinese space station will likely crash somewhere on Earth around March, according to a new prediction made Wednesday by Aerospace. And while that sounds terrifying, a member of the team behind the prediction tells the New York Times the Tiangong-1 "most probably will not harm anyone," which is semi-comforting.

The possible landing area of the unmanned space station covers about two-thirds of the Earth's surface, with the likeliest areas including parts of the US, Europe, Asia, and South America. It's incredibly hard to accurately predict where Tiangong is going to land. "If you're off by half an hour, you're on the other side of the planet," another team member says. Fortunately, USA Today reports Aerospace found the odds it hits a person to be "about 1 million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot" because the atmosphere will likely destroy most of the station upon reentry. (More Tiangong-1 stories.)