Wednesday, February 11, 2009

2 satellites crash 500 miles over the earth

Watch your head!

NASA is reporting that 2 old satellites crashed yesterday over Siberia. 500 miles over Siberia that is.

What I find amazing are these factoids:

- At the beginning of this year there were roughly 17,000 pieces of manmade debris orbiting Earth.
- There are people with the title "orbital debris expert".
- orbital debris is now the biggest threat to a space shuttle in flight, surpassing the dangers of liftoff and return to Earth.

So this begs the question: How the hell does a satellite orbit anyway? Basically once it is placed in motion at the right velocity - it falls towards the earth at the same rate the earth curves. So, it never comes back to earth - eva!

I love stuff like this.

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