William Atkins
Saturday, 28 February 2009 21:35
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 4
For additional information on the collision in space, please read the February 14, 2009 iTWire article “
Space highway crowded: Two major satellites collide.”
At an early stage of tracking this collisional debris, 354 pieces of debris was identified orbiting in space.
According to Daniel Deak, a satellite observer for SpaceWeather.com,
“The count is now at 109 catalogued fragments for Iridium 33 and 245 for Kosmos 2251.” [SpaceWeather.com: “
Satellite Debris”]
Deak adds, "
[T]here are surely more to come." [SpaceWeather.com]
As foretold, since Deak made his statements, the debris count has gone up to 414.
SpaceWeather.com states,
“Since these maps were posted on Feb. 26th, the catalogued fragment count has jumped from 354 to 414.”
The explosion caused by the impact of the colliding satellites—the old and unused Russian Cosmos and the fairly new and operational U.S. Iridium—left two
“clumpy rings” of debris orbiting about the Earth.
The collision was bad enough, for it took out of commission one fairly new and currently operational satellite, the U.S. Iridium 33.
However, the bigger and more long-term problem is, now, these hundreds of extra pieces of space junk make it more likely for future collisions in space.
These hundreds of pieces now can collise with other operational satellites, manned capsules, unmanned space vehicles, and even the Hubble Space Telescope (at an altitude above the Earth of about 610 kilometers) and, to a much lesser degree, the International Space Station (at an altitude of about 350 kilometers).
Page three provides further comments from Daniel Deak.
