每天清晨15分鐘，史蒂文老師帶你喝一杯經濟學人濃縮咖啡，瞭解天下事，掌握核心詞。

這是 Economist Espresso 欄目的第47篇精選文章：

Eyes on the sky: Tiangong-1

● 聽 1 到 2 遍音頻，邊聽邊記錄文章內容

● 聽音頻的同時閱讀下文，不要查詞

Eyes on the sky: Tiangong-1

China’s first crewed space station is coming home, but not in the way planned. The country’s space agency has apparently lost control of the satellite, and drag from Earth’s tenuous outer atmosphere is slowing its orbit. At some time before April 2nd it will fall out of the sky. Since it is impossible to predict the precise time, it is also impossible to predict where debris might fall, save that it will be somewhere between 43° north and 43° south.

This is far from the first time that a large object has crashed back to the ground. Earth is peppered by a constant, but diminishing, rain of uncontrolled space junk, such as spent rocket stages and superannuated satellites. In 1979 America’s 77-tonne Skylab space station crashed into Western Australia.

Fortunately, Earth is a big place, and people are small targets. No one has yet been hurt by falling space junk. Here’s hoping Tiangong-1 doesn’t change that.

關注史蒂文愛學習，每週更新經濟學人咖啡。