Poland in danger. Something big will fall at 242 km/h.

• The Polish Space Agency published a statement regarding the upcoming atmospheric entry of the Soviet COSMOS 482 probe.
• The entire object or parts of it could reach the Earth's surface.
• It is not known exactly where the probe will fall - the potential area includes almost the entire territory of the United States, South America, Africa, Australia, part of Asia and a large part of Europe, including Poland.

The Polish Space Agency announced in a statement that due to its specific structure, the probe will probably not be completely destroyed upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

The entire object or its fragments may reach the Earth's surface. Based on initial calculations of the object's orbit, the moment of entry into the Earth's atmosphere is predicted for the night of 9 to 10.05.2025 with an uncertainty window currently estimated at about 13-17 hours - POLSA reported.

POLSA spokeswoman Agnieszka Gapys added that the scope of the uncertainty window "results from the use of various computational models and input information to predict the object's flight trajectory."

The estimates allow the object to fly over Poland, the spokeswoman stressed.

Marco Langbroek of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands predicts that:

• Just before contact with Earth, the ship can travel at speeds of up to 242 km/h;
• this object is relatively small and even if it doesn't break apart, the probability of it hitting someone or something "is about the same as a meteorite impact, which happens a few times a year";
• The probe could fall between the 52nd parallel north and the 52nd parallel south.

This means that almost the entire United States, all of South America, Africa, Australia, parts of Asia and most of Europe, including Poland, are "at risk" - reported the TVN24.PL portal.

Karol Wójcicki, an astronomy popularizer, wrote on social media that current forecasts indicate that "the most likely moment of deorbitation (although still with about 13 hours of uncertainty in both directions) will be May 10 at 6:28 a.m. Polish time."

At that time, the probe should be in the vicinity of the Canary Islands, heading northeast towards Europe. Theoretically, for the next 10 minutes it will fly over Spain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and finally reach Poland.

The flight over our country is expected between 6:36 and 6:37 a.m., he explained.

He added that the trajectory will run more or less along the axis: Wrocław - Piotrków Trybunalski - Biała Podlaska.

"This means that we are dangerously close to a potential deorbit site. It should be clearly stated here that the object's orbit is still changing dynamically," the expert noted.