At around 6.17pm on Wednesday 21 February, the ERS-2 satellite completed its atmospheric reentry over the North Pacific Ocean, between Alaska and Hawaii, in uninhabited areas, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Wednesday evening.
This satellite, launched on 21 April 1995 and weighing just over 2 tonnes, ceased operations in 2011. ESA has decided to deorbit the satellite, which has collected a wealth of data on land surfaces, oceans and polar ice caps, and has been used to...