"13-Year-Old Satellite Plunges into Pacific Ocean in Fiery Reentry"

The European Space Agency's 5,550-pound ERS-2 satellite, which had been out of control and slowly pulled out of orbit for 13 years, reentered the Earth's atmosphere and harmlessly plunged into the Pacific Ocean between Alaska and Hawaii. The defunct satellite, the size of a school bus, was not radioactive or toxic, and its trajectory was impossible to predict. Launched in 1995, ERS-2 spent 16 years collecting data from the planet's surface and studying natural disasters in remote locations, and its reentry aligns with the ESA's commitment to leaving zero debris in space from its missions by 2030.