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What are the odds Mir will land on your head?


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(CNN) -- Russian mission controllers will attempt to guide the doomed space station Mir into a huge watery grave in the Pacific Ocean. What are the odds that the largest manmade object ever to fall from space will land on someone?

The target is huge for the orbiting complex. Whatever parts survive reentry into the atmosphere should fall into a 380,000 square mile swath of unpopulated South Pacific waters.

If something goes wrong, what are the odds that surviving debris could land on your head?

"It's 2 billion chances to 1 that you're going to get struck by this thing," estimated Col. Norman Black of the U.S. Space Command, the military division that tracks satellites.

Odds are pieces of the station will rain down far from land and away from populated areas. And according to its operators, Mir is carrying no hazardous materials.

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Still, aiming the 140-ton station is no easy task.

"The odds are it's going to be okay, but the odds aren't 100 percent. There is some risk to this," said John Logsdon of George Washington University.

One of the many variables involves Mir's orbital path.

"The orbit it has carries it over 85 percent of the world's population, over most of the major cities of the world except Moscow," Logsdon said.

Some people in Japan don't like the sound of that. The southernmost islands of the country are the last densely inhabited area that the space station will probably fly over before it breaks up and falls into the ocean.

A Japanese government security official said Friday that Tokyo might recommend that people stay in their homes to protect themselves from falling debris.

Here's what could go wrong. If the rocket engine guiding Mir into the South Pacific quits halfway through its burn, debris could strike parts of Europe. If the engine quits even sooner, Mir could stay in orbit a lot longer and land anywhere.

Who's keeping track of its path?

"We have a direct line with NORAD and U.S. Space Command," said Bruce Baughman of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which coordinates crisis responses in the case of national emergencies.

NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the joint U.S./Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace defense of the United States and Canada.

FEMA has a plan of action ready to go in the event that it receives word that debris is heading toward the United States.

It would put out a warning similar to those used to warn of severe weather. Once Mir starts coming down, people would have less than an hour to react.

"I would say it's probably a low probability. The best thing to do is to keep alert, listen, and if it looks like it's going to hit somewhere, we'll get the warning out to everybody. And then I think they should take whatever appropriate action that their local government recommends," Baughman said.

How big the pieces will be, or how many of them will hit Earth, no one can predict. Specialists said it's like skipping rocks on water. You can aim Mir, but you can't pinpoint exactly where it will land.



RELATED STORIES:
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Mir demise causes international high anxiety
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RELATED SITES:
Mir Space Station
International space station Alpha
NASA's Skywatch

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