3 ms·
I thought so too, but apparently this is not universally true. Some of the debris can be put in an orbit with a longer lifetime than the original satellite. I g
by Robotbeat 7y ago
I thought so too, but apparently this is not universally true. Some of the debris can be put in an orbit with a longer lifetime than the original satellite. I got into a long twitter argument with experts in this field, and I was proven false: some of the debris can have longer orbital lifetime and go to higher orbit.
EDIT: Here: https://twitter.com/SpaceJosh/status/1119721780254371840 https://twitter.com/SpaceJosh/status/1119721780254371840
Always embarrassing to make a fool of myself on the Internet, but losing an argument IS a very effective way of learning.
- avar 7y agoYou said: > That seems unlikely, as that requires like 11km/s which is more than the sum of the two velocities[...] Isn't the first problem here that you're assuming a spherical cow in a vacuum physics problem? Two satellites colliding aren't two indivisible pebbles colliding. They're going to pulverize on impact, and some of the now-expanding debris cloud might even contain combustibles the satellites were carrying. The debris also won't only collide once, there'll be a series of rapidly occurring re-collisions. Some of those might impart extra velocity on some of the expanding debris.
- choonway 7y agoGalilean cannon?