Where out-of-control spacecraft that has 'probably crashed' could have landed

The wreckage of an out-of-control spacecraft that has spent the past five decades orbiting the Earth has likely crashed back down now, though exactly where is unknown.

Radar tracking the progress of Kosmos 482 lost track of it yesterday morning (10 May), indicating that it had dropped out of orbit and was making its final descent to the ground.

However, since nobody's seen it or found the wreckage, it's likely that the chunk of space debris didn't actually land on anyone or do any damage, otherwise someone would have mentioned it.

Spaceships crashing back to Earth tend to be something of a talking point, and according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the remnants of a Soviet Union probe that was meant to land on Venus back in 1972 have dropped down into the Indian Ocean.

It said that the spacecraft had gone into the sea some 560km west of Middle Andaman Island, and since it's now sunk into the water it's probably going to be the end of the little spaceship.

The places it could land were varied, but experts say it was the Indian Ocean (ESA)

The potential splash zone was quite a wide area, given the speed at which Kosmos 482 was orbiting the Earth and the difficulty in pinpointing exactly when it would land.

It could have been pretty much any point in the world between the south of England and the Falkland Islands where the spacecraft came down, but most of the predictions were that it would hit water.

About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water, so it's little surprise that the most likely final destination for the failed probe was the sea.

If anyone does manage to find it then you're not allowed to keep it as a souvenir as it technically belongs to Russia.

Despite the risk of a spaceship chunk coming down and landing on someone, experts put that possibility at about a 'one in 10,000' chance which in other terms meant it was really very unlikely.

Launched, failed to reach Venus, hung around doing nothing for 53 years, crashed into the sea. What a life (Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The probe was launched in 1972 as part of a Soviet Union attempt to land it on Venus, where it would transmit data back from our planetary neighbour for a while before the harsh conditions destroyed it.

Other Soviet probes were able to make it to Venus, but Kosmos 482 failed to get out of Earth's orbit and has spent the past 53 years circling the globe.

However, what goes up must come down and the spacecraft has finally made a re-entry.

It's a very different world from the one that it left, not that it has the capacity to appreciate this because it's a spaceship.