Don't look up!

A stranded Russian space probe, known officially as Phobos-Grunt, is destined to plummet back to earth on Sunday 15 January; with no indication of when or where it may make it's crash landing. Launched November 8 2011, a failed rocket flung the craft off-course, which lead to the inevitable captivity of the probe. For months it was trapped inside the Earth's orbit.

The gravitational pull of the Earth's core has slowly been dragging Phobos-Grunt away from it's original target of Mars. With no way to communicate with the probe, scientists are anticipating it's rocky return. The constant shifts in the outer atmosphere and solar activity make predicting an exact time and location impossible, but under current conditions the probe should return at approximately 3:22pm (GMT) over the Atlantic Ocean, east of Argentina.

The 14 ton spacecraft will make it's fiery decent with no less than 11 tons of toxic rocket fuel on board, which should make for an explosive display should it land on hard soil. Although 73% of the planet is water, many are still worried of the danger. Organisations across the globe have joined forces to track every millisecond of the fall. The panel includes representatives from 12 space agencies. With funding for space research already being cut, could this be the end of the road?