Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Near Earth Pinball

Listed under the category 'things that are scary enough to make you lose sleep if you just think about them for long enough', this article deals with the very real problem of all those bits and pieces of satellites that are circling our wondrous little blue spot in the heavens. Some are tiny, but if they were to hit an astronaut doing a space walk that would be the end of that... scary!

From the article:
For the first four billion years of this planet’s history, the moon was the sole object in regular earth orbit. Today, if you are camping out away from the city glare, you will frequently observe tiny points of light crawling across the night sky; each is part of the near-earth population of man made orbital devices.
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1 comments:

Dr Robert Brignall said...

Dear Mr. Evans- Thank you for your kind words about my article "Near Earth Pinball." I may do a follow-up because after I wrote the piece the ISS has had near encounters with space debris. I really like your site.
Sincerely,
RB