An out-of-control Chinese space station, unmanned and hurtling through the space, will likely come crashing through the atmosphere in the next week or so, experts said, and some debris could fall over southern Oregon.

Launched in 2011, the Tiangong-1, China's first space station, was intended to be a research vessel. The Chinese pulled off three successful missions to the station, two of them with crews, before the craft reached the end of its functionality.

The plan was to steer the station, which is roughly the size of a school bus, so it reentered the atmosphere over the wide open, and unpopulated, southern Pacific Ocean. Any debris that didn't burn up would fall into the sea. That plan, however, went awry.

In early 2016, communications with the station ceased and there was no way to control the spacecraft or where it would fall to Earth.

Since then, the station's orbit has been slowly degrading, inching ever closer to its inevitable demise.

Where exactly the station will re-enter the earth's atmosphere is unknown, but experts said it will be somewhere between 43 degrees North and 43 degrees South latitudes. That area covers nearly two-thirds of the earth's surface, but he most likely areas for reentry are at the edges, including southern Oregon.

The potential areas where the Tiangong-1 space station could reenter the earth's atmosphere are shown in green. Areas on the edge, in yellow, have a higher probability of being with the zone of disintegration.

For reference, the city of Medford is at 42.3 degrees north, well within the potential reentry zone.

So should you buy a hard hat? Or hastily construct a bunker to protect yourself from falling space trash? Experts say no.

In all likelihood, most of the spacecraft will burn up in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. If some parts of the vessel do survive, the chances of any debris hitting a person are infinitesimally small.

"The personal probability of being hit by a piece of debris from the Tiangong-1 is actually 10 million times smaller than the yearly chance of being hit by lightning," the European Space Agency wrote.

There has only been one recorded instance of a person being struck by space debris when a woman in Oklahoma was hit on the shoulder by a piece of a disintegrating rocket in 1997. She was uninjured.

Debris from the station could be hazardous, though, as the craft is carrying a highly toxic and corrosive substance called hydrazine. Any pieces of the station that do survive and fall to earth should be avoided.

While not specifically dangerous, the station could put on quite a show if the conditions are right. When the European Space Agency's ATV-1 craft reentered the atmosphere in 2008, the display was nothing short of dazzling.

"Incandescent objects during this reentry may be visible and will likely last up to a minute or more, depending on time of day, visibility conditions, and the observer's location," The Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center, wrote in a press release.

As of Wednesday, the best predictions for when the station crashes through the atmosphere put it somewhere between March 31 and April 2. For the most recent updates on when it is expected to crash to Earth, check with the European Space Agency here.

-- Kale Williams

kwilliams@oregonian.com

503-294-4048