Bus-sized satellite to re-enter Earth's atmosphere this week

Source - Space Weather News for Sept. 20, 2011: http://spaceweather.com

UARS, a NASA satellite the size of a small bus, will re-enter Earth's atmosphere later this week producing a brilliant fireball somewhere over our planet. Best estimates place the re-entry time during the late hours of Sept. 23rd over a still-unknown region of Earth. Observers of the rapidly-decaying satellite say it is tumbling and flashing, sometimes almost as brightly as Venus. Video images featured on today's edition of http://spaceweather.com show how the doomed satellite looks through a backyard telescope.

Readers who would like to catch a last glimpse of UARS streaking across the night sky should check SpaceWeather's Satellite Tracker for flyby times: http://spaceweather.com/flybys . You can also turn your smartphone into a UARS tracker by downloading our Simple Flybys app: http://simpleflybys.com