NASA scientists had speculated widely as to where it would land, in the event Skylab fell in Western Australia, but it could have come down anywhere.

It had been intended that the US built spacestation would remain in orbit until the space shuttle could deal with it in the mid 1980's.

Skylab, though, started to break up, and, whilst it may sound dangerous, most of the debris would have broken up in the earth's atmosphere before hitting the ground.

However there were some sizeable items on board that were designed to withstand re-entry: A 5,100lb (2,310kg) airlock shroud and 3,900lb (1,767kg) lead safe which could have caused a large amount of damage if they hit a populated area. Nobody was injured.