A Kanopus-ST satellite, launched aboard a Soyuz-2-1v on Dec. 5th, 2015, was supposed to go into polar orbit. But Russian media reports the bird failed to separate from its upper stage and will re-enter Earth's atmosphere on or about Dec. 8th, 2015. Part of the satellite's mission was to test submarine tracking capabilities.
The supermassive black hole is 40 million times as massive as the sun and powers a quasar that existed 700 million years after the Big Bang.
The asteroid zoomed by Earth at a perfectly safe distance of around 1.8 million miles (2.9 kilometers).
Images show surprise changes to the spacecraft as it interacted with the atmosphere.
