Kosmos 482 was part of the Soviet Union's storied Venera program of Venus exploration. The probe launched toward the second planet from the sun in 1972 but never got there; its rocket suffered an anomaly, stranding Kosmos 482 in an elliptical orbit around Earth.

A mysterious Soviet-era spacecraft, launched nearly half a century ago, is now on a course back to Earth’s atmosphere. But this isn’t just space junk - experts are watching closely to find out what survived,