Mysterious metal chunk slams into Texas home
DPD Finds Source Of Metal Piece That Fell From Sky
CHUNK OF SHIT FALLS OUT OF SKY AND STRIKES AMSTERDAM HOME!
Rob at Orbiting Frog is too cool: he has software that allows you to track the debris from the recent satellite collision using Google Earth. You can follow the debris in real time! That is so excellent.
This makes me wonder why the guys at NORAD and other trackers didn’t know this collision was going to happen before it occurred. There are a lot of satellites, and the orbits change, but it seems simple enough to write code that allow you to see if any two satellites come within, say, a kilometer of each other at any given time. You could run that every time you update the orbital parameters of the satellites. So I’m scratching my head about that. Anyone out there in BABlogland have any inside knowledge?
- Asteroid belt may bear scars of planets' migration
Today's asteroid belt may have been shaped by a tumultuous period in the early solar system.
--New Scientist
SATELLITE DEBRIS: US Strategic Command is still cataloguing debris from the Feb. 10th satellite collision over northern Siberia. "The count is now at 109 catalogued fragments for Iridium 33 and 245 for Kosmos 2251," says satellite observer Daniel Deak, who has prepared some 3D maps of the debris for readers of spaceweather.com. Click on the image to view a snapshot of Kosmos fragments on Feb 26th:
A similar image shows Iridium 33 debris, and other views are available, too: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5.
These maps reveal in full what earlier, less complete maps strongly hinted: Kosmos debris is scattered more widely than Iridium. "Kosmos fragments range in altitude from 250 km to 1690 km," says Deak. For comparison, "Iridium fragments range only from 525 km to 1092 km." Kosmos fragments descend all the way down to the 350 km orbit of the ISS. The space station is in little danger, however; most of the Kosmos scatter is over the Antarctic where the ISS does not go.
The total debris count now stands at 354 pieces. Says Deak, "There are surely more to come."
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