4 ms·
What if it was a billion smaller magnets? Over time they would clump up with other debris and other clumps, and the mass would make the orbits decay faster. Thi
by gentleman11 5y ago
What if it was a billion smaller magnets? Over time they would clump up with other debris and other clumps, and the mass would make the orbits decay faster. This is my very uninformed idea, maybe magnets just have such short range that it’s not feasible at all
- SonicScrub 5y agoIf you put a billion magnets in space haven't you just increased the space-junk problem by multiple orders of magnitude? Also, heavier objects decay slower than light ones. Atmospheric drag is the driver of orbital decay. If you increase an object's mass, you lower the de-acceleration provided by atmospheric drag. Drag force scales with surface area, which increases as the square of size, whereas mass increases with the cube. Therefore, increase the size, and mass increases at a faster rate than drag force. Therefore in general larger objects decay slower than small ones