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A doomed 53-year-old Soviet lander presently toppling back to Earth might be tracking a parachute, brand-new pictures of the spacecraft expose.
The Kosmos 482 probe, which released in 1972, was developed to arrive at Venus as part of the previous U.S.S.R.’s Venera program. A breakdown in the rocket it was installed on triggered the spacecraft to divide in 2, with the primary body crashing back to Earth in 1981 and the lander area staying caught in orbit ever because.
Now, after news broke that the lander will Return to our world at some point around May 10, satellite trackers have actually examined pictures of the craft and exposed an unidentified item routing behind it.
“Some structure is connected to the capsule,” Ralf Vandebergha Dutch astronomer and astrophotographer, composed on the social platform X “Not impossible that it’s the parachute, but this is still speculation!”
These pictures of Kosmos 482 in orbit, taken 10 years apart, apear to reveal a faint structure routing behind the craft. (Image credit: Ralf Vandebergh)
Kosmos 482 was developed as a sis probe to Venera 8, which released in July 1972 to end up being the 2nd craft (following Venera 7) to arrive on Venus. When there, Venera 8 beamed information from Venus for simply over 50 minutes before being fried by the world’s blisteringly hot environment.
Related: 5,000-pound European satellite burns up over Pacific Ocean after thirty years in orbit
Developed to endure passage through Venus’ environment, the 1,091-pound (495 kgs), 3-foot (1 meter) lander is most likely to go back to Earth undamaged.
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Vanderbergh snagged this very first set of high-resolution images in July 2024 and published them on X on April 29, 2025. In side-by-side contrasts with pictures recorded in June 2014, both sets of images appear to reveal “a compact ball” with “a weak elongated structure at one particular side of the ball” appearing in a number of frames, he stated.
Even if this tracking product is certainly the lander’s parachute, it’s not likely that it will make it through the craft’s approximate 150 miles per hour (242 km/h) reentry through our world’s environment.
“If it is true that this is the parachute that came out a long time ago in space, this would mean it is likely to burn up on reentry and will have no function in slowing down the spacecraft,” Vanderberg composed on X
With satellite watchers avidly tracking the spacecraft’s descent, more images and current forecasts of where it will land make certain to follow. View this area.
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