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No math is involved, only common sense : there's a certain amount of natural space debris surrounding planet earth. This amount has reached a steady state over
by frederikvs 5y ago
No math is involved, only common sense : there's a certain amount of natural space debris surrounding planet earth. This amount has reached a steady state over the past few millions or billions of years.
Over the past few decades we've started launching stuff into orbit. Some of that stuff explodes.
Hence, there is now more debris surrounding planet earth.
Whether or not the amount of extra space debris has already caused an increase in collisions is a different matter, for which some statistics would be required. But that wasn't the point I was making.
In fact, it's quite the opposite of the point I was making : something has hit the ISS, and whether it's man-made or natural is (AFAIK) not specified at this time.
- sandworm101 5y agoSomething hits the ISS almost every day. This collision gets noticed because the hole it left is larger than average, but if you look close enough the ISS is covered in tiny impact damages. This paper (2019) lists over 1400 impact sites on the ISS, and that is only the ones that have been discovered. https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/orbitaldebris2019/orbital2019paper/pdf/6001.pdf https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/orbitaldebris2019/orbital2...
- Lanzaa 5y ago> there's a certain amount of natural space debris surrounding planet earth. This amount has reached a steady state over the past few millions or billions of years. For what it is worth, I would question this assumption. Why would the amount of natural space debris around earth be at a steady state? Meteor showers [1] are one example of how the amount of space debris is not at a steady state. [1] Meteor Showers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_shower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_shower