Google Earth: See the *insane* number of satellites in orbit + space junk. Grab this cool .kmz

[KatanaDV20]

Got Google Earth? Grab this:

http://adn.agi.com/SatelliteDatabase/SatelliteDatabase.kmz

And prepare to be amazed by the sheer # of stuff we have put up there. Don't forget you can click on any orbiting object and GE will animate its trajectory.

"With the recent discussion of the ISS having to dodge some space junk, many people's attention has once again focused on the amount of stuff in orbit around our planet. What many people don't know is that USSTRATCOM tracks and publishes a list of over 13,000 objects that they currently monitor, including active/retired satellites and debris. This data is meaningless to most people, but thanks to Analytical Graphics, it has now been made accessible free of charge to anyone with a copy of Google Earth. By grabbing the KMZ, you can not only view all objects tracked in real-time, but you can also click on them to get more information on the specific satellite, including viewing its orbit trajectory. It's an excellent educational tool for the space-curious. Disclaimer: I not only work for Analytical Graphics, but I'm the one that wrote this tool as a demo."

-Matt Amato
Source:http://science.slashdot.org/story/0...atellite-tracked-in-realtime-via-google-earth

 

[KatanaDV20]

Its pretty mental, even the SMALLEST piece of junk can do MASSIVE damage because their orbit-speed is in the region of 17,000mph!

Its kinda cool how they can track tiny objects with radar from the surface! Id be scared doing space-walks!

I know this is really dumb, but omg @ how they do not crash into each other
How can we be sure, given the abnormalities of our orbit, that something wont "slip out of sync" and go crashing into something else.
Crazy physics.

No question is dumb A lot of planning goes into a launch. The trajectories and positions of all sats are known so the lauch parameters ensure that the sat is inserted into the right orbit. Sats have small thrusters to allow for corrections. In fact the ISS has thrusters that are fired now and then to push it back up. The ISS is in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) so it actually experiences drag from the edges of Earths atmosphere. It is at about 230 miles above the surface. Contrast this with GPS satellites which are 12,000 miles away!

But like you said accidents DO occur..

WASHINGTON - Iridium Satellite LLC confirmed today that one of its satellites was destroyed Tuesday in an unprecedented collision with a spent Russian satellite and that the incident could result in limited disruptions of service.

According to an e-mail alert issued by NASA today, Russia?s Cosmos 2251 satellite slammed into the Iridium craft at 11:55 a.m. EST (0455 GMT) over Siberia at an altitude of 490 miles (790 km). The incident was observed by the U.S. Defense Department?s Space Surveillance Network, which later was tracking two large clouds of debris.

Source:http://www.space.com/5542-satellite-destroyed-space-collision.html