4 ms·
The key insight there doesn't have that much to do with orbital mechanics, it's more that in a collision, small fragments can come out with vastly more momentum
by phreeza 6y ago
The key insight there doesn't have that much to do with orbital mechanics, it's more that in a collision, small fragments can come out with vastly more momentum than they went in with, which in orbits translates to a higher apogee. If you have ever bounced a small ball off a large one, you know the effect. See this video for an intuitive example https://youtu.be/2UHS883_P60 https://youtu.be/2UHS883_P60
- lutorm 6y agoYes, it translates into a higher apogee, but not a higher perigee. So they will still come down to the altitudes with higher drag.
- phreeza 6y agoStrictly speaking this is only true if you start with a perfectly circular orbit, right?
- jamesmaniscalco 6y agoNope, any orbit. Think of it this way: an orbiting particle (or piece of debris) with no independent control/thrust will stay along whatever orbital path it's following, round and round (modulo any further orbital decay). After a collision, the particle is on a new elliptical trajectory, but the new trajectory still passes through the location of the collision. So the lowest point of the new orbit cannot be any higher than the altitude of the collision. Likewise, if the particle is slowed down, the highest point of the new orbit cannot be any lower than than the altitude of the collision. An interesting feature of orbital mechanics is that a change in velocity at a given point in orbit will change the altitude of the orbit at every point except where the change took place.