A 1.1 metric Ton satellite will re-enter the earth's atmosphere in the next 48 hours, fragmenting into smaller pieces as it falls. The exact location of the fall is unknown, so you better watch out... Or not.

I was discussing this event with my daughter this morning, and it ended up being an instructive discussion on random events of very low probability. If we are totally oblivious of the satellite orbit, and forget different likelihood of earth surface points for the re-entry (the very north and south latitude are much less likely), we can try and compute how likely it is that one of, say, 50 large fragments of the satellite will end up falling within a 100 m^2 area around us -which would be frightening enough.

"In God we trust, all others bring data"

William Edwards Deming

Just a quick link today, to acknowledge an interesting report on the life of physics students in Greece and the present situation with Universities there. And of course, if you wish to practice your Greek, there are more articles there, translated for us by Yiannis Michaloliakos.