[UPDATE: Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log is reporting that the satellite will definitely come down on Friday, though NASA is not sure yet exactly when and where.]
[UPDATE 2: Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society blog has lots of detailed info now.]
By now you've probably heard that NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS, pronounced YOO-arz, though in my head it's always "You arse!") will burn up in our atmosphere some time between Thursday and Saturday. The satellite was decommissioned in 2005 and they used the remaining fuel to lower the orbit. It's been slowly getting lower since then, but recently reached the part of our air where it slows and drops dramatically. As you can see from this plot (click to embiggen), it's dropped from about 375 km to 200 in just the last few months, and down it'll come later this week. No one knows where or when ...
