# video | The last seconds of the life of the Chinese space station that fell to Earth

At the moment in the orbit of our planetThe International Space Station is located. Groups of cosmonauts from different countries live inside it and conduct various studies: they study the effects of weightlessness on the human body, try to grow plants, and experiment on animals. To conduct the same research, China is developing its own station - it will consist of several parts, the first of which is planned to be sent into orbit as early as 2020. The efficiency of the future station was tested on the example of the test apparatus "Tyangun-2", which burned down yesterday in the atmosphere of the Earth. The last seconds of her life were videotaped.

Immediately it is worth noting that "Tyangun-2" wasfully operational - Chinese scientists deliberately destroyed it, because it conducted all the necessary research and became unnecessary. She was sent into Earth orbit in September 2016 and already in October the manned ship “Shenzhou-11” docked with the taikonaut (the so-called astronauts working in the framework of the space program of China) named Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong. They stayed at the station for a month, and then successfully returned to Earth.

Destruction of the Chinese space station

Station "Tyangun-2" began to burn in the atmosphereEarth at four o'clock in the afternoon Moscow time. Some of its parts did not burn down and fell in the so-called “dead zone” of the Pacific Ocean, in which, as was believed before the recent discovery, no one lives. The beginning of the burning was filmed using a camera attached to the station body. The destruction of a huge 10-meter apparatus can be observed until the atmosphere has destroyed the camera itself.

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Why do objects burn in the atmosphere?

When space falls on planet Earthapparatus, an asteroid or other object, it moves at extremely high speeds and begins to heat to critical temperatures. This happens for several reasons. First, the surface of the falling body begins to come into contact with the air, and during this friction the surface of the object heats up and it begins to collapse. Secondly, the object enters the dense gaseous medium of the planet and a shock wave is formed in front of it, in which sharp fluctuations in the density and pressure of the gas particles occur, which also heats the surface strongly.

This is interesting: Will an asteroid fall to Earth this fall?

Due to the high temperature, devices without heatprotection and the more space objects like meteorites are completely destroyed in the atmosphere of the Earth. To prevent this, companies like SpaceX equip reusable launch vehicle parts with robust protection against high temperatures. At the beginning of July 2019, she was able to return to the Earth the head fairing of the Falcon 9 rocket, and she easily withstood the entrance to the dense layers of the atmosphere.

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