A 5,000-pound satellite is expected to fall to Earth this week

A European Space Agency satellite is expected to reenter and largely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday morning. The agency’s Space Debris Office, along with an international surveillance network, is monitoring and tracking the Earth-observing satellite, which is predicted to make its reentry on Wednesday, with a 15-hour window of uncertainty. The exact time of the satellite’s reentry remains unclear due to the unpredictability of solar activity. The satellite, which was launched in 1995, collected valuable data on the planet’s polar caps, oceans, and land surfaces before its operations were ended in 2011.