Heartbeat collision of Russian Chinese rocket junk satellite tonight | World



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The LeoLabs satellite tracking network, based in Menlo Park (California, USA), warned on the afternoon of October 15 on Twitter: “We are monitoring a very high risk of collision between two large objects. in low Earth orbit “.

According to LeoLabs, these two objects are most likely only 12 meters apart before midnight, resulting in a collision probability of around 10%. In particular, a distance of 12 m is not described as different from an orbiting “pinhole”, that is, extremely narrow.

Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said one of the two objects was a dead Russian satellite, named Kosmos 2004, launched into space in 1989. The other object is a layer of Chinese boosters.

Fox News radio quoted experts as saying that the confrontation could occur at 11:56 p.m. on October 15, at an altitude of perhaps more than 900 km. The total weight of both is 3 cubic tons.

Since the point of impact (if any) is far from the ground, they pose no danger to those below, but could pose a threat to future astronauts.

“If a collision were to occur, this event could have created thousands to tens of thousands of space debris… The potential danger from such explosions could be far greater than humans could imagine. “according to Mr. Dan Ceperley, general manager of LeoLabs.




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