【Her PS Partner】

Before a Soviet-era spacecraft intended for Venuscrashed back to Earth over the weekend,Her PS Partner German astronomers watched it tumble through space. 

As Kosmos 482took its last laps, a German radar station spotted the uncrewed landing capsule passing over its antenna. The station, the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR, has combined its observations with an image of a similar capsule to show the spacecraft's orientation and features in the radar reflection. 

The data, presented as a GIF farther down in this story, helped the European Space Agency track the probein its final hours, though its final resting place — most likely a watery grave — is still unknown. 

---

You May Also Like

---

---

If it indeed plunged into the Indian Ocean as some computer simulations have suggested, "only the whales and albatross saw it," said Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek in a poston X.

SEE ALSO: Stunning video reveals Jupiter's roiling auroras. See it now. A predecessor to the lost Soviet spacecraft, either the Venera 5 or Venera 6 capsule, is being prepared for launch in January 1969, in this still image taken from the film "The Storming of Venus." Credit: Sovfoto / Universal Images Group / Getty Images

The Venera mission, which launched from Kazakhstan on March 31, 1972, failed long before the Soviet Union could attempt to touch down on Venus. Because of a propulsion problem, it never escaped Earth's orbit. A half-century later, the landing capsule was predicted to reenterthe atmosphere. That day arrived on Saturday, May 10.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Space debris and expired satellites often fall back to Earth inconsequentially, mostly burning up on the way down. Whatever survives often plummets into an ocean, never to be found. 

This anticipated-yet-uncontrolled reentry was to be exceptional, though: It grabbed the attention of researchers and military officials because of its potential to survive the journey mostly intact. After all, the 1,000-pound spacecraft was built to withstand the harsh environment of an alien planet — the hottest in the solar system, in fact. Venus' climatecould melt lead, and the atmospheric pressure is 75 times that of Earth.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Watch the GIF of the tumbling Soviet spacecraft in the above X post. Credit: Fraunhofer FHR

Fraunhofer FHR was likely the last to see Kosmos 482. It passed about 62 miles overhead on May 10, at 8:04 a.m. CEST, according to the station.  When the object was not detected again one orbit later, at 9:32 a.m. CEST, researchers reasonably assumed the landing or splashdown occurred between those two times.

---

Related Stories

---

• Stunning video reveals Jupiter's roiling auroras. See it now.
• The best telescopes for gazing at stars and solar eclipses in 2024
• Venus is 900 degrees. That's surprisingly not why it's bone-dry.
• The most spectacular images of Venus ever captured

A tracking and imaging radar like the one used by the German station is a way to observe space, but it's not a telescope. It uses radio waves instead of light to study objects, such as satellites, debris, and meteors. 

Exactly where and when this Cold War space race relic died is unclear, as it seems there were no eyewitnesses to the fall. The Russian Space Agency Roscosmossaid it plummeted over the Indian Ocean, west of Jakarta, Indonesia, at 9:24 a.m. Moscow time, according to a Telegram post, and NASAappears to be accepting of that data. Other reports, some based on earlier predictions, varied. 

The U.S. Space Command, which tracks reentering space objects, has not confirmed any reports or provided its own data on Kosmos 482. An information request from Mashable wasn't answered Tuesday.

• Science
• Tech
• Entertainment
• Deals
• Social Good
• Life
• Digital Culture
• Shopping

• Inside the Murky Process of Getting Games on Steam
• This humongous flaming barge was used to commemorate the Great Fire of London
• When a rare syndrome renders girls voiceless, tech helps them speak again
• Cruise ship sails straight into a monster storm for second time
• Is it 'Thunderbolts*' or *The New Avengers'?
• Obama downplays G20 arrival spats while agency sends salty tweet
• Leslie Jones is back on Twitter and her comeback tweet rules
• Fans froth over Chris Hemsworth's Insta
• This fat bear's before and after photos are stunning
• Airbnb asked to disclose data on 172 users so far this year

• The Whole Rigmarole: Ben Jonson, William Drummond, and the Declaration of Independence
• We’re Both Dippy Over Him, and Other News by Dan Piepenbring
• Thirty Malapropisms
• An Interview with Jana Prikryl
• One Night Only! The Implosion of the Riviera, Monaco Tower
• Falling for Fitzgerald
• What Does an Italo Calvino Look Like as a Building?
• How Much of Van Gogh’s Ear Did He Cut Off?
• Why I Got Really, Really Into Garth Brooks As a Kid
• Taxicab Confessions: Sure, I’d Kidnap a Celebrity!

• Mary Shows Up
• British store has an A+ response to road sign spelling error
• At IFA 2016, smart appliances and virtual reality take center stage
• British Airways blames IT issue for global delays
• The best day to book your flight, according to Google
• ABC just dropped some new shows on its revamped app
• After long search, Rosetta finally finds the Philae comet lander
• Watch Tom Hiddleston's award speech get hijacked by Thor co
• Best robot vacuum deal: Save $140 on roborock Q7 Max Robot Vacuum
• Boomer Phelps is the real king of the pool in new Instagram video

• The fat bears are already extremely fat
• 'Bridget Jones's Baby' delivers a delightfully unexpected throwback
• Millennials respond excellently to #HowToConfuseAMillennial hashtag
• FBI dumps results of Clinton's email investigation online
• Philips now allows customers to 3D print replacement parts
• 11 things millennials ruined
• Shakespeare's 'black is beautiful' sonnet gets Indigenous translation
• Cruise ship sails straight into a monster storm for second time
• How to Squeeze the Most Out of Your iPhone's Battery
• Cruise ship sails straight into a monster storm for second time