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From: newscientistvideo
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  • why do we not see any of this out there?

  • Yay! Meteor shower!

  • well at least it didn't take out the satellite tv satellites :)

  • Ok everyone, we need to build a giant net to catch all that stuff, i'll get started.

  • *sigh* i will have to use the rope from this nuse

  • It's better than having debris floating around Uranus....hehehe.

  • lol

  • lol yeah, a globe with hamroids rotfl!!!

  • Oh, we renamed that years ago. It's now called Urectum.

  • What's going to happen to these debris? Are they to be accumulated or ignored, hoping it would fall to earth or move on? Are they going to remain where they are? wouldn't it affect the trajectory of existing satellite?

  • Comment removed

  • Anyone seen WALL E? You know when the camera zooms out on Earth? Yeah, this is that.

  • 'Debris not to scale'...

  • Let me get this straight. Some guy works in a lab, and then disappears. The lack of evidence clearly showed that a ghost did it, proven using only technology from 1820. Next, in 1920, two boys were never seen again, but once again the lack of evidence proves beyond a doubt that they were murdered.

    Now, you would have me believe that these people, who have been dead for almost one or two hundred years, have hacked youtube's database, and will kill me if I don't spread their story.

    Fuck off.

  • wow we have a lot of junk in space

  • We have a protecting shield of debris! :)

  • atleast it will just mix in with the rest

  • you kniow what would be cool .. if all that dust and peices form up they can form another moon .. a much smaller one but it will ...

  • A moon or orbiting junkyard mass? lol

  • lol i donnu ... lol

  • 1 million satilites now loolol

  • look at what we can do...a virus indeed.

  • holly crap.. there's so much stuff flying around xO

  • nice debris modeling, (other) carrico!!!

  • well that was a bit predictable

  • That is sick

  • it was clearly a move by the USA to surround the earth with debris pending their demise in order to hinder the Chinese subjugation of the moon.

  • Lol. That makes sense to me. I thought it was North Korea that was going to do that. ;)

  • what program?

  • What is the green object at the time 01:02?

  • its likely a deep space probe or some farther out orbiting satellite because in the video it says the green objects are pre-existing space objects and the red is the debris.

  • Thanks. :)

    I didn't know those satellites were in that outer orbit.

  • A satellite in geosynchronous orbit.

  • Thanks:)

  • epic fail

  • holy crap !!!!!!!!!!! this is supossed to happen ? it went through central america right ? noooooooooooooooo

  • As usual there first has to happen something (disaster, accident...) before they even start to think about cleaning it up. I know it's easier and cheaper at the moment to let it be, but the amount of debris is not going to get less

  • Oh sorry Mr Einstein!!

    Maybe a huge space magnet - that would do the trick

  • I knew a woman who's job was to keep an eye on the orbits of 70 satellites. She made adjustments to their orbits with ancient software. It was cool.

  • Just make a big vacuum cleaner to clean it all up.

  • that's funny, since it's already a vacuum it wouldn't affect it. I hope you're kidding!

  • You know, if you think about it. A device that could go in to the vacuum of space to clean up all the debris could be called a vacuum cleaner.

    I'm a genius!! ;)

  • You could do the opposite of that and blast the objects with air to move them out of orbit.

  • lol

  • That's good idea! just spread some gas on it! Kick it above 11km/s and it will leave earth forever ! Or wlo the debris down to burn upp in the atmosphere (but how can we detect and remove all the debris? )

  • Russian non operational sat accidently hitting a fully operational US sat? mm..

    Also, wouldnt thousands and thousands of satellites block out some sun?

  • Not even millions and millions would block out some sun.

    Compared to how high up they orbit, they are almost negligibly tiny.

  • so how did no one realize this would happen earlier? im guessing this wont be the first time.

  • Ok everyone I think that you should watch the Disney movie Wall-e. It shows what is going to happen to us if we don't get our Sh_t together and start taking care of this stuff. Also did anyone see that fireball the other day? We are going to have alot of problems when that stuff starts falling down...

  • Re-entering debris isn't really a problem in itself, most of the pieces are so small that they just burn up in the upper atmosphere. The fireballs seen lately were all of natural origin (asteroids), which isn't really related.

    The main issue with this event is that it could knock out other satellites and eventually render low earth orbit unusable for quite some time.

  • how did something like that happen?!??!?

    they are littering space like crazy

  • litter in space...last time i checked space was really big

  • Yeah but the "litter" likes to stick around right where expensive and delicate satellites are.

  • probably we will get a debree ring if all of this disapates into a circular formation. u know like the gas giants...

  • How can there be that many pre-existing space objects? Seems impossible to get through all that if we fly into space. Great, just another "door ding".

  • "Seems impossible to get through all that if we fly into space."

    The debris is relatively small, and space is relatively large.

    Even so, it is getting harder.

    Thousands of bits of debris are tracked constantly so launches can avoid them, but anything smaller than 10cm can't be tracked at all.

  • HILARIOUS! Love the "Not to Scale" comments. It's definately gonna make space flight in the future a lot more trickier, not to mention littering fines (in space).

  • Holy Crap...good thing this debris stuff is not to scale...lol

    Actually great info, some of this fell over Texas today and a lucky soul in Austin got it on video. Sad thing is, the more stuff we put up there, the more stuff that will fall back down. (I am sure my astronomy instructor in college would like me stating this with more tech terms...sorry Dr.)

  • Debris not to scale, LOL, no shit :P

  • Now earth has 2 rings.. or will have, at any rate

  • thats wut i was thinking!

  • I didnt know there was so much debris floating around the earth, I wonder how the space station survives without getting hit!

  • The International Space Station, for instance, is orbiting about 350km high, while the collision happened in about 700km up, double the height of the human-occupied station.

    The problem is the other many satellites that orbit in the height of the collision, that can eventually get hit by the debris, which would cause considerable damage.

    There is a theory known as the Kessler Syndrome that proposes that the volume of debris in low-orbit is so big that the chance of further impacts is increased.

  • awesome!!

  • What I meant is that Any kind of nuclear reaction power supply is prohibited because its a threat for the astronauts up there and people down here.

    The point of this is to make sure no nuclear weapons are sent to space.

  • "Any kind of nuclear reaction power supply is prohibited"

    Technically radioisotope decay (as used in RTGs) is a nuclear reaction.

    So I suppose you mean induced reactions such as nuclear fission chain reactions.

    You're probably right on that one.

  • ufo at 1:03

  • I see

    If it is space junk,

    so, Marine junk is Sea shepherd and Greenpeace

  • >:(

  • I wondered why is two smashing satellites was such a big thing can someone explain it to an me (an idiot) so that I can understand? is it because one was american the other russian? or is it because the satellites did something vital?

  • china did a test of a weapon to prove they could destroy satelites.well when the satelite and weapon exploded in space it sent tens of thousands of little peaces out. thoes little peaces are traveling at a extreamly high rate of speed, if even one hit another satelite it could break it- satelites dont have much protection from impacting debris. satelites are put in orbits that keep them somewhat protected but when unplanned for objects like this are put in space, it risks whole networks like gps

  • even though this particular event wasnt at the same height as gps, it is a good example though, there are many other important netowork links at this altitude. it really does demonstrate out weakness relying on extremely weak, unprotected satellites that can easily be destroyed, and china recently showed they could 'blind' american spy satellites. a backup system- other then a satellite one- should definetly be in place in the event of a conflict with such a country.

  • "why is two smashing satellites was such a big thing"

    Because each of the pieces of debris might hit another satellite. And then the debris from that collision might hit another and so on.

    There's so much stuff up there that pretty soon we'll be at the point where it's dense enough to cause a chain reaction, like dominoes.

  • ???? DID'NT BOTHER ME NONE?????

  • Man is piece of shit and anything he make is piece of shit. Polluting space, airlines crash recently ar examples, he still think he is Gos. Filthy homosapan, filthy white race

  • I had a long comment as a reply to this but as i re read it.... the only real response has to be LOL!!!!!

  • What do they do if a satellite with a nuclear reactor collide?

  • Name one...

    Most run on solar due to 0 cloud interference but if you think there are some running on nuclear fusion, please name one. I sincerely doubt it.

  • Its prohibited by international law to put anything related with nuclear in space, but that is soon to change :)

    You are right all of them run on Solar power :D

  • What would be the effect on earth if these two satellites were nuclear powered?

  • "What would be the effect on earth if these two satellites were nuclear powered? "

    The government *claim* that the fuel pellets would survive re-entry intact and could be found and collected.

    It seems reasonable, since the russian one that fell into the sea off the coast of Brazil didn't seem to release any radiation.

  • "Its prohibited by international law to put anything related with nuclear in space"

    That is either incorrect or NASA are ignoring that law.

    The Voyager probes, Pioneer 10 & 11, Cassini, Ulysses, Mars pathfinder, New Horizons and Galileo all used "nuclear" materials.

    Also the Transit, LES and Nimbus satellites, (and probably a few more that are still classified.)

  • satellites are spouse-to be usable for a long period of time, nuclear fusion first of all requires a resupply of the essential material for it to function properly, and finally and most importantly it needs to be extremely cooled, some thing that is passable, but have to be maintain: as water would evaporate and special cool fluid would have to be exchange ever so often. and we don't wont to build and lunch time bombs waiting to fall or malfunction and turn into a nuclear falling dirty bomb.

  • "nuclear fusion first of all requires a resupply of the essential material for it to function properly,"

    Fusion reactors haven't been invented yet.

    You're thinking of fission, which are too heavy.

    That's why they use radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

    An RTG is basically a (sub critical) lump of plutonium which gets hot because of it's radioactive decay and drives a thermocouple to make electricity.

    The recent cassini-huygens mission used this type of generator.

  • "[a reactor] needs to be extremely cooled, some thing that is passable, but have to be maintain: as water would evaporate and special cool fluid would have to be exchange ever so often"

    That's not necessarily so. There are many reactor designs which used closed coolant cycles. The obstacle to using them in space is the weight.

  • Some satellites use radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Mainly spy satellites, since usually only governments are "allowed" to put RTGs into space.

    Examples are; L.E.S. 8 and 9 series comms satellites and "Transit" navigational satellites.

    Most space probes also use them.

  • So are we to believe that the objects that supposedly collided were as big as the yellow and blue dots they show us , or that the debris field would also be that big, as in , relation to those blue and yellow dots. This is a retarded representation of an event I do not believe even occurred. In the future they will reference this event as an excuse for some agenda. Anyone got ideas? I do. Lets here em.

  • you didn't watch the video very closely did you. I mean it does say it's not to scale.

  • Crock of shit! Never happened. Lets see what they will you this as an excuse for in the future. TRUST NOTHING!

  • Thanks for posting this. I hadn't heard much about it

  • Satellite destruction derby about to commence?! Debris hitting more and more often as it spreads!

  • I know... thats cool and bad at the same time.

  • I vote Virgin Galactic will be first in creating a space junkyard in Arizona. Replete with a their own Jettsonesque version of Fred G. Sanford collecting the debris spinning about up there! :D

    Cuz somebody better start cleaning up this shit and build confidence, if they're to make money off a venture at all.

  • Damn space terrorists. I think we should invade Iran, I'm pretty sure they had something to do with it.

  • I reckon it was a consortium of Iranians, Zionists and the Communist Nazis.

  • Did you just realize how retarded you sound? The Nazi's were against Communism.

  • Communist Nazis? You need to take another look at a history textbook.

  • I'd love to see a collision like that in slow motion.

  • Did they get each others insurance details?

  • Hahahaah NASA is so useless

  • Lol yeah any random person made more inventions and made contributions to science then NASA I mean come on...

  • haha, I was about to get mad at you and start defending NASA, but I thought about it and kind of laughed. They are useful for the Military though, which I fully appreciate.

  • Uh.... is it really? I'm sorry, is getting to the moon not good enough for you?

  • what if it falls to earth and gets in my hair????

    : )

  • head&shoulders works best on satellite debris ....

  • Wow, what a chance!

  • I have to believe that the collision of 2 satellites is an inelastic collision, and would not create a perpendicular pattern.

  • Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

    They can simulate the aftermath but not predict it the collision?

    They can predict a meteor crashing into the planet but not 2 satellites crashing into each other that they positioned?

  • "They can simulate the aftermath but not predict it the collision?"

    As if those are comparable? One is predicting the future, one is observation. Accounting for all possible variables affecting a satellite's orbit such that you can predict it's position is harder than tracking it's position.

    As if those are comparable? They new these were going to have a close flyby. They can predict a meteor crashing into the planet but not 2 satellites crashing into each other that they positioned? "

  • I'm sure both sides knew about the "unprecedented collision" before it even happened. "They" track everything in the sky, and in orbit. WOOPS??

  • They can only track objects to a certain accuracy. When you know where an object is, but the uncertainty is a kilometer or so, you can never know for sure a collision will happen--only that it MIGHT happen.

  • most of that trash is falling back down to earth or is slowly leaving

  • lol, planning fail!

  • mannn, now space is full of trash. Now who's gonna clean em up?

  • novazee; time will clean it up, it will ither fall down or fly away.

  • all of these videos are confusing

  • its Obamas fault, why not he hase done nothing to stop it.

  • in ten years all earth orbits will be rendered completely useless thank god for fibel optic land based systems.

    and we can finally say good buy to NASA

  • earth becomes the new saturn

  • lol did you see the little green alien at the end of the clip do the flyby :D

  • ya. the thing at 1:03?

  • come on nasa send up a garbage shuttle and clean that shit up. it is pothetic

  • That would be like trying to find a needle in a hay stack, accept the needle is a bullet, and the hay stack is billions of cubic miles volume.

  • litter bugs -.-

  • Salvage much?

  • haha...pretty soon we will have a ring around around planet

  • Space may be enormous, but obviously some paths and locations are going to be more popular than others.

  • to all those that think it's critical to clean it up: Learn to read.

    It says: debris not to scale. So worst case... if there are 10k pieces of debris large enough to cause damage, it still is very empty.

    I don't think cleanup is really necessary, Satellites fall back after X years (20-30) if they don't correct their path regularly. So all the debris will fall down by itself. Cleaning it up is also technically and financial impossible...

  • bollocks was this an accident

    the odds of that are like a quadrillion to 1

  • can still happen. you'd be surprised how many satellites are in orbit. i dont know the number personally but you have to think about the amount of different companies, comunications etc that would need them.

  • yer but they are all programmed and placed to avoid each other, surely they have a computer tracking and predicting their paths so adjustments can be made to their orbits to avoid collision

  • yeah, thats a fair comment. i know that but i'd imagine that computer systems aren't infallible. as well the unpredicted affects of gravity etc. would be interesting if the two companies had "common interests" though.

  • i guess there will always be errors, this just happens to come at a time of high tensions in space, what with all the anti sattelite rockets and it being america and russia, not the best of friends right now

  • The Russian satellite was out of commission and was not being orbit-kept, so they wouldn't have been able to initiate a collision, and there would be no reason to "shoot down" a dead satellite. As a satellite engineer, I can tell you that trying to hit a target like that is ridiculously hard. Try to imagine using a gun to shoot a moving bullet. Now imagine you're blindfolded and someone is TELLING you where and when to fire.

  • As a satellite engineer, I can tell you that trying to hit a target like that is ridiculously hard.

    Didnt chinese successfully launch anti-sattellite missles in 2007?

  • Comment removed

  • oshi look at all the existing objects. we need to clean that shit up.

  • why?

  • lol srsly? Do you really want all that shit flying around extremely fast when we're trying to send people to the moon and beyond.

  • I hope this was a collision and not a continuation of China's proving its ability to take out orbit based bodies from a terrestrial base(as 2008's example proved possible), with USA able to retaliate in likewise fashion, if it were they probably would try to keep it from the chattel cattle using 'collision' as a covering explanation to prevent economic and socisl upheavel, though hopefully my fears are unfounded!

  • That looks pretty bad, there already was quite a lot of junk around Earth, but it seems like it has increased quite a lot now.

  • gravity is a funny thing

  • Those satellites probably weren't larger than a car (don't know if they had wing-like solar panels). Imagine two cars driving around the earth (nothing else on it, just the two cars). How great are the chances they hit? In space you even have a third dimension to pass by. Just 10 meters and they wouldn't have "met". 10 meters in space is nothing!

  • The Russian bird was gravity-gradient controlled, so it had an extremely long boom (10+ meters, I think).  But you're right, the odds of an actual collision were still extremely remote.

  • Damn, space is full of junk and shit. Maybe we should do something about it :O

  • earth is full of junk and shit and were still doing nothing.. what more when it comes to outer space.. eehheeh imo..

  • gosh our atmosphere is dirty

  • Mad!

  • Iridium is satellite telephones, not GPS. What value would a dead satellite be or why would you want to crash something into it. If you could grab it whole with the space shuttle to study the technology, sure.

  • wonder what is sounded like in space...

  • lol dude,

    there wasnt any sound, remember space is a vacuum.

  • erm, it shouldn't sound like anything, if it were beyond the atmosphere

  • lol ok whatever:P

  • I was kinda hoping some expensive satellite parts would crash in the ground around my house, so then I could sell them on ebay. But now I can see all expected money is carelessly floating around in space. that's just perfect!

  • Very interesting.

    Imagine what LEO will look like in 200 years!

  • no wonder no aliens landed yet.

    they would get stoped by planetary debris field XD

    I gess its cheaper then running planetary shield :D

  • I hope my GPS will still work, wtf?? millions of dollars shattered because they didn't plan good enuf? ridiculous!

  • lol truth

  • GPS satellites are much higher up, so they are at no risk. No worries, you can still navigate to the local Hooters!

  • good i hope it wipes them all out tossers spying on each other and us whats the world coming too lol!

  • greaT! more debris on lower orbit soon we wont be able to launch any ship into space as the entire planet is covered with garbage

  • You guys actually think this was an accident. I wonder what ind of satelite were these. Either the Rssians brought down the US or vis-a-versa. I bet they were spy satelites!!!!!!

  • @aabehzadi - "Accident?" The Russian satellite was said to have gone dead in '93. It has been accurately tracked since then. ANY changes in its established orbit would've been recorded, so it is doubful that it was purposefully targeted at another object. UNLESS, using long-term targeting, the Russians calculated the Iridium satellite path out several years. That, too, is doubtful as the first Iridium satellite launched June, '97.

  • Maybe they just 'said' it had gone dead, but was actually used as a spy satellite! The US needed a plan to bring it down, and they couldn't just tell the Russians to shoot it down, cause they can just wave the 'dead satellite' story in their faces.

    Therefore they were forced to crash one of their satellites into it.

  • peace look at this FACT AND FICTION FILM THEY SAY IT WAS A SMALL SAT THAT DID IT. IS MY BLACK RING THING SAFE UP THERE, WHY DONT THE JOHNSON SPACE PEOPLE USE THE STAR WARS HARDWARE TO BLOW

    UP THE RUBISH IN SPACE?

  • Blowing up pieces of space junk makes more smaller space junk... you aren't the sharpest tool in the box are you ?

  • what were the CHANCES of that happening?

  • Why isn't there any shadows on earth from the shit load of space debris in earths orbit? Shouldn't we be able to look up and see all the spots of black?

    confused.