Bracing for friday the 13

As WT1190F heads to Lanka's Southern coast:

by Manjula Fernando

While the world is preparing to observe the mysterious space junk named WT1190F plunge to earth near Sri Lanka's southern coast on Friday November 13, the people responsible are complacent and not in any hurry to prepare for any eventuality.

All stakeholders need to be in the forefront of action but at this point of time, the Disaster Management Centre, the Navy, Fisheries Department as those who should be in the know had little or nothing to say, as to what is expected on Friday the 13. Our questions entailed a lot of 'what ifs' to which we did not get satisfactory answers.

Fall

The unknown object that is expected to fall close to Sri Lanka's Southern tip is said to be a few metres in diameter and suspected to be a piece of discarded space junk from an early moon mission, probably from the Apollo. But no one has made an accurate reading of what this WT1190F is, except that it has an outrageous acronym (WTF 1190).

The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre and the European Space Agency's NEO Coordination Centre, European Space Research Institute (ESRIN) suggest that this piece of debris could be a rocket booster, a fuel tank or even a solar panel.

Interesting phenomenon

Scientists worldwide are awaiting to observe first hand the interesting phenomenon of a space object diving through the earth's atmosphere. According to the Arthur C Clark Institute in Moratuwa, the object, which they have termed as a piece of alien UFO, is expected to fall at around 11.48 a.m. Sri Lanka time to the Southern seas.

Gerhard Drolshagen, of the European Space Agency's near-Earth objects office told 'The Nature', an observing campaign is now taking shape to follow the object.

It will be an important event in astronomical aspects because astronomers have put in place plans to coordinate their efforts when a potentially dangerous space object shows up on a collision course with the Earth.

The event will not only offer a scientific opportunity to watch something plunge through the atmosphere, but Drolshagen said it will also test these coordinated plans by astronomers. This object, with an eccentric orbit, was first observed in 2013.

Saroj Gunasekera, Senior Research Scientist at the Arthur C Clark Institute said last Thursday that it was too early to predict the exact location where the object would fall. The predictions as of last week are that it may land 65km to 100 km off the southern coast of Sri Lanka. "We may get an accurate read of its exact impact location only two days before the event," he said.

Not committing to reject that it might miss the sea and fall on the land, he said the piece of debris might completely burn out as it enters the atmosphere or break into fragments, of which tiny pieces may land on southern Sri Lanka.

The Disaster Management Centre, the Navy and the Fisheries Department are relying on the Arthur C Clark Institute to feed them as to the course of action to follow as the D day nears.

Contingency plans

A spokesperson for the Disaster Management Centre said, they would be acting on the communications received from the Arthur C Clark Institute adding that it was early to put in place contingency plans or to decide if evacuation of people in the area is needed.

He said it is predicted that the piece of junk will enter the earth at a speed of 30 to 35 kilo meters per second.

The fisheries Department have already relayed their district fisheries offices in Galle, Matara and Hambantota to keep the fisheries community updated on the space object encounter on Friday.

"We will be issuing a fishing ban on Friday, depending on the advice from the Disaster Management Center, " Fisheries Department Director General M.C.L.Fernando said.

Chief Air Traffic Controller, Airport and Aviation Services, Krishanthi Tissera said a no fly zone will be declared above Sri Lanka's southern waters, where the space object will fall on earth and they were expecting more information on this event in the coming days to prepare itself for any eventuality.

Hollow

Planetarium Director General Priyanka Koralagama also confirmed that it was too early to plan anything concrete. She said as the day approaches the European Space Agency (ESA) and other institutes, through the Arthur C Clark Institute, will convey what to expect during the space debris encounter.

According to observational data gathered by the WT1190F watchers, including the ESA the density of the object is much less than that of the solid rocky material many asteroids are made of. Going by the data, the scientists suspect the object may be hollow therefore the material may not cause any serious damage to the area.

But the display as it enters the earth's atmosphere, is expected to be spectacular, since for a few seconds, the object will appear 'quite bright' in the mid-day sky.

According to 'Sky and Telescope', International Astronomical Center (IAC) and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency in cooperation with several other like minded institutes and the University of Stuttgart, Germany have organised airborne observations of WT1190F from a specially equipped Gulfstream 450 business jet.

Incidentally, the World Science Day falls on November 10 and Sri Lanka will observe a Science Week from November 10 on wards, to coincide with the suicidal collision of the mysterious space stranger on Friday.