Orbit movie you can see well how many tens of thousands of debris that collided with Iridium's communications satellite "Iridium 33" and the Russian military communications satellite "Cosmos 2251" will become

It is a collision accident between the satellites of the first US and Russia discovered around February 11th to 12th of Japan time,It collides with the former Soviet satellite which loaded the nuclear reactor and warns that it may cause radioactive contaminationIt is being done,Decades of operations such as changing another orbiting satelliteAlthough it is said, until now the probability of such collision between satellites is "1/50 millionJust as it was seen as about, newlyNearly 700 debrisIt seems that the incident in this case, the affairs of each place concerned which is produced seems to be big.

The shock wave at the time of a collision becomes a hypersonic shockwave and shatter both the satellites, probably producing tens of thousands of debris when thinking with fragments of 1 cm or more,One theoryThese debris continue to fly at a tremendous rate of 800 km orbit, which is one of the most advanced altitudes for the satellite for the next 10,000 years, and the power to be able to significantly destroy the satellite in any small debris among them It is said that.

So let 's see a movie simulating what happens on the satellite orbits of the Earth when actually leaving as it is. Playback is from the following.
SpaceDebris / Orbital Analysis - SSDL

Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 Satellite Collision - Analytical Graphics, Inc.

If you download and decompress 38.0 MB (Gaussian) and 50.0 MB (Evolve-based) ZIP file on the above page, each WMV format movie comes out.

This is Iridium 33. Make the whole earth the service areaIridium satellite phone serviceIt is the satellite used for.


Cosmos 2251, Russian military satellite which was not used anymore


The moment when Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 crash


It shattered and fly away



In this way it scatters on orbit ...


I will start around the Earth


Debris that the point of green already exists, and the point of red is debris caused by this collision. Now that about 19,000 debris is going around the earth. Including small ones will further increase that number.


It seems like it will fly like this



Leaving it as it is, debris collides with each other to create debris, repeating self-replication endlessly "Kessler SyndromeIn the worst case, it seems that it may cause human beings to prevent mankind from entering space. That means that we must do something, "Debris removal system"Has also been devised, what will happen in the future ...?