The Lagrange points are points of equal gravitational pull, between two bodies. I don't know if these are classified as Lagrange points since the pull is only from one body. I don't really have anything to back up my previous post but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Actually, I work in the orbital analysis field. I spent a few years updating the satellite catalog (SATCAT) and I've seen how Geo satellites behave and how they trend over the years. I'll see if I can't find something else to describe it a little more.
It has something to do with the mass of the Earth. These points line up pretty well with the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayas. These areas are known as gravity wells and all Geo satellites try to drift there. As operational satellites drift, they are command back into their orbital slot by their operators. Some satellite operators will purposely position their satellites at the wells as there is less fuel required to keep them in their orbital. Dead satellites drift towards the closet well, slingshot past them, and then come back. Occasionally they will swing back and forth between the two wells. It takes several months to swing back and forth. The satellites also gain inclination over time (15 years) before they hit a certain orbital point and then their inclination drifts back down to zero, and repeat. The inclination drift is said to be due to the Moon, however, it's tied the the satellites Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN), something that's independent of the Moon. Regardless, over time these satellites that die on the "Geo-belt" only really cross the operational satellites twice a day because of their inclination. US law requires satellite operators to dispose of their GEO satellites into a graveyard orbit before they die, but you can't really do that when it stops responding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_orbit
I don't know about objects speeding up in space, but they sure don't slow down unless they're re-entering. Check out the bottom of this article where it talks about a fleck of paint hitting the shuttle windshield. Apparently it went through 4 of 7 glass layers. The shuttle now flies backwards to try to minimize any collision impacts.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/02/10/sprj.colu .investigation/
Can you imagine a 200lb piece of fly paper flying through space at 17,000 mph and colliding into thousands of other objects moving the same speed but in other directions? I don't think there is a good solution out there, at least yet.
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Here's something else I found a while back. The writers page isn't up anymore but I have a copy of it. http://www.twofields.com/Other/Geostationary%20Belt.htm
Here's some plots I made of GOES-5 which died on the belt. http://www.2fields.com/Other/Goes-5.xls
The Lagrange points are points of equal gravitational pull, between two bodies. I don't know if these are classified as Lagrange points since the pull is only from one body. I don't really have anything to back up my previous post but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Actually, I work in the orbital analysis field. I spent a few years updating the satellite catalog (SATCAT) and I've seen how Geo satellites behave and how they trend over the years. I'll see if I can't find something else to describe it a little more.
It has something to do with the mass of the Earth. These points line up pretty well with the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayas. These areas are known as gravity wells and all Geo satellites try to drift there. As operational satellites drift, they are command back into their orbital slot by their operators. Some satellite operators will purposely position their satellites at the wells as there is less fuel required to keep them in their orbital. Dead satellites drift towards the closet well, slingshot past them, and then come back. Occasionally they will swing back and forth between the two wells. It takes several months to swing back and forth. The satellites also gain inclination over time (15 years) before they hit a certain orbital point and then their inclination drifts back down to zero, and repeat. The inclination drift is said to be due to the Moon, however, it's tied the the satellites Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN), something that's independent of the Moon. Regardless, over time these satellites that die on the "Geo-belt" only really cross the operational satellites twice a day because of their inclination. US law requires satellite operators to dispose of their GEO satellites into a graveyard orbit before they die, but you can't really do that when it stops responding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_orbit
The only problem with this is that it would undoubtedly collide with some active payload.
You can see a picture of the windshield at http://users.adelphia.net/~jfields026/shuttl~1.jpg
Can you imagine a 200lb piece of fly paper flying through space at 17,000 mph and colliding into thousands of other objects moving the same speed but in other directions? I don't think there is a good solution out there, at least yet.