'Out of control' Chinese satellite could smash into populated area, experts claim

Space experts fear China has lost control of a satellite and claimed it could come crashing to Earth at any time.

Stargazers have been monitoring the progress of a spaceship called Tiangong-1, which has been orbiting Earth since its launch in 2011.

They have become concerned about the pattern of its orbit, prompting them to suggest that the 8 ton craft is on a death spiral and could end up smashing into the surface of the planet.

Thomas Dorman, a satellite tracker, told Space.com he believed the craft was slowly falling back to Earth.

Although spaceships sometimes burn up in orbit, there is a risk parts of it could survive intact and wreak havoc down on terra firma.

"If I am right, China will wait until the last minute to let the world know it has a problem with their space station," he said.

"It could be a real bad day if pieces of this came down in a populated area."

Beijing is notoriously tight-lipped about its space programme, leading observers to suggest its interest in space is motivated by military ambitions.

The Chinese space agency has not commented about the status of the Tiangong-1 for several months.

In March this year, China's state media said that communications with the satellite had been cut and it was on course to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

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However, no date has been set for its entry into the atmosphere.

This led Dean Cheng, a China expert at a Washington thinktank called the Heritage Foundation, to suggest the satellite is out of control.

""That would seem to suggest that it's not being deorbited under control," he claimed.

"That's the implication."

There are more than 60 disused satellites thought to be orbiting the Earth.

If they are locked in the right trajectory, they could spin around the planet indefinitely.

But if they are headed towards the ground, they could either burn up in the atmosphere or plunge towards the ground.

Anyone unlucky enough to be beneath a falling satellite is in big trouble, because a great hunk of metal falling from the sky is likely to cause a large explosion.

The impact could also scatter dangerous chemicals far and wide.

However, it is not known for sure what will happen to the Tiangong-1, so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and wait.

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