Word: spacing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ever walked through a swarm of gnats at a picnic, you have some idea of what it's like to navigate the mass of debris that circles our planet in low-Earth orbit. Space planners have long warned that the growing belt of cosmic junk would eventually lead to collisions, and on Tuesday it happened, when an American satellite and a defunct Russian satellite totaled each other 500 miles above Siberia. This has sparked new worries that space is simply becoming too dangerous a place to travel. Things aren't nearly that severe yet - but they're getting worse...
...human species has a prodigious power to litter, but the popular belief has been that the sheer enormousness of space prevents humans from doing too much damage. That's true enough - or at least it would be if we traveled throughout the entirety of the cosmos. But the fact is, the vast majority of our space exploration amounts to little more than wading offshore. The shuttle orbits at about 220 miles; the International Space Station stays at 270 miles. Our highest-flying satellites hang in space at about 22,000 miles - which sounds like a lot until you realize that...
...even a small satellite into orbit, after all, much more than just the satellite comes along for the ride. There are spent booster stages, discarded adapter rings, bolts and panels and bits of insulation and even chips of paint being shed in the process. (See pictures of Earth from space...
...think we will almost certainly see hundreds if not thousands of pieces of tracked debris," says Mark Matney, an orbital-debris scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "It all depends on how efficient the impact was. Was it a glancing blow or a full body...
...space moments since Sputnik...