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Satellites Collide In Orbit

Posted by samzenpus on from the starpocalypse dept.

DrEnter writes "According to this story on Yahoo, two communications satellites collided in orbit, resulting in two large clouds of debris. The new threat from these debris clouds hasn't been fully determined yet. From the article, 'The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. Each satellite weighed well over 1,000 pounds.' This is the fifth spacecraft/satellite collision to occur in space, but the other four were all fairly minor by comparison."

5 of 456 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Expanding debris cloud by Logic+and+Reason · · Score: 0, Redundant

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

  2. Re:First collision by molarmass192 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Seriously though ... this might be the impetus to develop force shields a la Star Trek. It makes sense, when enough space junk builds up, deflector shields will be the only way to safely escape Earth orbit.

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  3. Re:This was bound to happen. by annodomini · · Score: 0, Redundant

    http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp

  4. Re:First collision by Renegade+Iconoclast · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I don't know about anybody , but for me, 'in soviet russia' jokes usually fall into two categories for me: funny or annoying. This is the first one that just left me going "meh".

    My point is, I think we can safely retire it, seeing as the joke is now so tired it's become bland. It's like the Who of Slashdot memes.

    In Soviet Russia, joke retires YOU

  5. Re:First collision by OolimPhon · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Idiot. Try colliding two cars at high speed and see how many pieces result from the collision. I bet it's greater than two.