First pieces of destroyed Cosmos 2251 reentering Earth

William Atkins
Wednesday, 11 March 2009 18:25

Science - Space

The SpaceWeather.com article “Cosmos is falling” states the likelihood that these three pieces will survive their descent through Earth’s atmosphere.

It says, “These [three pieces] are probably centimeter-sized pieces that will disintegrate in the atmosphere, posing no threat to people on the ground.”

A map of the debris orbits of both destroyed satellites is found on the SpaceWeather.com website.

Daniel Deak, who made this map, stated within the SpaceWeather article, "As of March 7th, there were 355 catalogued fragments of Cosmos 2251 and 159 fragments of Iridium 33. The Cosmos fragments are not only more numerous, but also more widely scattered, ranging in altitude from 198 km to 1689 km. For comparison, Iridium fragments are confined to altitudes between 582 km and 1262 km."

A map of the orbiting debris from Iridium 33 and a map of the orbiting pieces of Cosmos 2251 are found on the SpaceWeather.com website.

Further maps of the two orbits are also located on the SpaceWeather.com website.

And, further information on the actual tracks that these three pieces of Cosmos 2251 take when they come back through the Earth’s atmosphere is found on the March 11, 2009 Astroblog article “Cosmos 2251 Comes to Earth,” by Australian astronomer Ian Musgrave.