Junk in space
Feb. 12th, 2009 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
illusionofjoyWASHINGTON (AFP) – A Russian and a US satellite crashed into each other in an unprecedented collision unleashing clouds of space debris that could threaten orbiting spacecraft, officials said Thursday.
A disused Russian military satellite, Kosmos 2251, collided on Tuesday at 1655 GMT with a communications satellite owned by US-based Iridium Satellite LLC, Russian and US space officials said.
The accident took place about 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Siberia, said Russia's Major General Alexander Yakushin, quoted by the Interfax news agency.
After more than five decades of human activity in space, the news raises fresh concern over the swarms of hazardous debris orbiting the Earth.
The magnitude of the two large debris clouds from the collision, the first hypervelocity impact between two intact spacecraft, will not be known for at least several weeks, NASA said.
Based on Iridium's Wikipedia entry, not only did this accident cause massive clouds of space pollution, it probably caused a bunch of people to suffer an interruption to their satellite phone service. I think it prudent to be more concerned about the massive clouds of space pollution, however.
