A piece of a Soviet-era spacecraft that had been orbiting Earth for more than 50 years has likely re-entered the atmosphere, according to the European Space Agency.

The object was part of Kosmos 482, a 1972 mission intended to reach Venus. However, the spacecraft failed to escape Earth’s orbit and broke into four pieces, which have been circling the planet ever since.

One of those fragments, believed to be the descent module, was built to withstand high heat and remained in orbit for decades.

The EU Space Surveillance and Tracking Centre reported that a fragment of Kosmos 482—likely the lander—”most likely” re-entered Earth’s atmosphere around 06:16 GMT (07:16 BST) on Saturday.

It remains uncertain whether the object completely burned up during re-entry or if parts of it reached the ground.

Although many aspects of the re-entry are still unclear, experts say the chances of damage are low, as around 70% of Earth is covered by ocean.

“It’s much more likely that you win the lottery than that you get impacted by this piece of space debris,” Stijn Lemmens, a senior analyst at the European Space Agency, said.

Experts believe the Kosmos 482 lander may have survived re-entry because it was originally built with a strong heat shield and structure to withstand Venus’s extreme conditions.

However, Kosmos 482’s parachute system, designed to slow its descent on Venus, likely deteriorated after over 50 years in space.

Mr. Lemmens noted that “re-entry of human-made objects into Earth’s atmosphere occurs quite frequently,” with larger spacecraft re-entering about once a week and smaller objects almost daily.

Kosmos 482 is now closely monitored by international space agencies, following the re-entry of China’s Long March 5B booster over the Indian Ocean in 2022 and the burning up of the Tiangong-1 space station over the Pacific in 2018.

Mr. Lemmens suggested that future spacecraft should be designed to safely deorbit, ideally through controlled re-entries.