Chinese space lab crashes in Pacific ocean

According to news agency AFP, there was no immediate confirmation of the final resting place of any remaining debris, although the South Pacific is largely empty.

Beijing, April 2: A defunct Chinese space lab hurtled through Earth's atmosphere on Monday, broke up into pieces as it crashed in the South Pacific ocean. The eight-tonne Tiangong-1 "mostly" burnt up above the vast ocean's central region at 8:15 am (0015 GMT), China's Manned Space Engineering Office said, moments after predicting a slightly later re-entry over the Atlantic.

According to news agency AFP, there was no immediate confirmation of the final resting place of any remaining debris, although the South Pacific is largely empty.

The 8.5-tonne Tiangong-1, with a length of 10.4 meters and maximum diameter of 3.35 meters, providing a room of 15 cubic meters for three astronauts to live and work, was launched by the Long March-2FT1 carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sept. 29, 2011.

PTI