Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Venera 8 artwork shows the landing capsule on the cloud-veiled world on July 22, 1972.
Image credit: NPO Lavochkin

The recent reentry of a mis-fired Soviet Union Venus probe to Earth from the 1970’s has become a detective story of when, where and what happened during its downfall.

Different computer models were used to predict the reentry. But why were they divergent, and how best to improve our ability to nail down the “whereabouts and when” as a space object topples into Earth’s atmosphere?

It turns out that being off “even a little bit” means a whole lot of Earth in determining the final whereabouts of an incoming object.

Image credit: CORDS

For more details on this decelerating detective story go to my new Space.com article – “A failed Soviet Venus probe from the ’70s crashed to Earth in May — why was it so hard to track?” – at:

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/a-failed-soviet-venus-probe-from-the-70s-crashed-to-earth-in-may-why-was-it-so-hard-to-track

The splashdown area of the Kosmos-482 descent module on May 10, 2025.
Image credit: Roscosmos