Satellite hits Earth

Nasa said today it is not aware of any injuries or property damage from a defunct 6-ton satellite that has fallen from the sky.

The agency posted on its website that the spacecraft crashed through the atmosphere early this morning somewhere over the north Pacific Ocean. An exact location was not known.

Most of it was believed to have burned up.

The Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) was Nasa’s biggest spacecraft to tumble out of orbit, uncontrolled, in 32 years.

UARS was launched aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1991. Nasa decommissioned the satellite in 2005, after moving it into a lower orbit that cut its life short by two decades.

Bits of space junk often re-enter the atmosphere No injuries have ever been reported from it.