It appears that China's "Heavenly Palace" or Tiangong-1 space station may want its last big show to be taken seriously. The out-of-control hunk of space junk has been expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere on Sunday, April Fool's Day, but the most recent predictions show the 9-ton craft's fiery return slipping to later Sunday or perhaps early Monday.

Lower than expected solar activity is allowing Tiangong-1 to stay aloft a little longer than expected, according to the European Space Agency. ESA now predicts the space station will enter our atmosphere and begin to break apart at 4:25 p.m. PT Sunday, give or take several hours. The Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies is making almost exactly the same prediction as of Saturday.

China, meanwhile, is hedging with a particularly wide prediction window. China Manned Space is simply predicting that its wayward space station will re-enter sometime between Sunday and Tuesday, Beijing time. 

Remember, there's almost certainly no reason to worry about any damage from pieces of Tiangong-1 that make it all the way to the ground, but as I outlined earlier, it's understandable to be concerned.

For more on Tiangong-1's final hours, check out my basic primer. If you see Tiangong-1 streaking across the sky, take a video and tweet it at me @EricCMack.

Stay tuned for more updates as the Heavenly Palace's fall from the heavens draws closer.