What is Digg?117 Comments
- gnu611, on 09/26/2008, -3/+71walllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeee
- gr00vy, on 09/26/2008, -3/+64Um... Except that in the pictures each of these is about 100,000 times as big as they are in real life. You realize that space is REALLY big, and that these things are a long ways a way from each other, and they are relatively small.
- phirestyle, on 09/26/2008, -1/+22EEEvaaaaaa!
- Cararan, on 09/25/2008, -4/+23Awesome pics!
- twertyto, on 09/26/2008, -2/+20A lake of fire.
- ASSASSYN360, on 09/26/2008, -0/+145 more and we can launch one to orbit for free.
- creditkards, on 09/25/2008, -2/+14Litterbug.
- Kinneas12, on 09/26/2008, -3/+14Yeah this article is retarded. It really is a non-issue. I'm sure people do realize it's exaggerated, but probably not how exaggerated it is. We could fit every human-made satellite in space in a baseball stadium if you filled it up.
- Ymeg, on 09/26/2008, -3/+13Oh *****.
It looks like several international space station has been completed. - ewc80, on 09/26/2008, -0/+10Hmm, satellites not quite as large as depicted. Satellites are usually smaller than Colorado in real life.
- zerton, on 09/26/2008, -0/+8This is exaggerating the scale of it all.
- whatthefu, on 09/26/2008, -0/+8They're all bigger than Great Britain in that picture.
- xtraa, on 09/26/2008, -2/+10Aliens must be thinking
'What kind of morons are living on that trash-surrounded planet?' - Berkana, on 09/26/2008, -1/+9That was exactly what I was thinking when I saw those pictures.
- SorryIGotDrunk, on 09/25/2008, -2/+9crazy scary stuff, huh?
- Spoggerific, on 09/26/2008, -0/+6This is a rather silly question.
Do you have any idea how small most of the debris is? Do you know how fast it's moving, and how far apart each individual piece is, and how many there are?
From Wikipedia,
"There are more than 600,000 objects larger than 1 cm in orbit (according to the ESA Meteoroid and Space Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference, the MASTER-2005 model)."
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris for more info. - gloryride, on 09/26/2008, -1/+7Since only one person has succeeded in mentioning it.. I'm going to as well.
You people are impressed by these NOT TO SCALE pictures. It's basically... photoshop. Except where there should most likely be an invisible point (if we were to scale) they put a huge ass satellite representation. If this were an actual photo, all you would see is Earth, that's it. Yea there are a lot of satellites up there, but you have to remember, Earth is more massive than you can comprehend. You have no direct experience with an object of its size. Thousands of pieces of debris? Please. When you take into account the actual cubic area of space we're talking about..
People who think this is impressive probably think the Solar System is the biggest thing in the Universe. - slvrbullet87, on 09/26/2008, -0/+6Yep... somebody watches every single person in the USA, 150 million people watch the other 150 million... and nobody has admited to doing this as their job
- FunyGirl, on 09/25/2008, -3/+9very nice article!
- techjunkie83, on 09/26/2008, -1/+7Remember when China blew up that satellite earlier this year? That act alone increased debris in low earth orbit by 20%. The worst part? They knew what they were doing and were intentionally polluting orbits to prevent future use. The United States owns the most satellites, around 3000+, and are responsible for around 6000+ pieces of debris. The Chinese own around 67 satellites, and are responsible for over 3600+ pieces of debris.
- cusoman, on 09/25/2008, -3/+8I'm surprised we don't have more stories about satellites falling from the sky like that military one from earlier this year. Those pics are intriguing and disturbing at the same time, for sure.
- PHLAK, on 09/26/2008, -1/+6Which one of those is Goldeneye?
- MechanicalZack, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4Maybe eventually it will be an artificial O-Zone layer and we'll be safe from global worming! Yay!
Anyone? - QaSpel, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4Notice, Satellites not drawn to scale.
- phirestyle, on 09/26/2008, -2/+6Fair enough. I don't know ***** about space... or science in general. I'm the English/History/Art guy. I'm jealous of the Math/Science guys. PS; ***** ENGINEERING! =(
- RedMoonGenie, on 09/26/2008, -1/+6Damn you. I was gonna say that.
- chromie, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4Nothing will stop the global worm.
- xcornbreadx, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4.....you masturbate.
- drewX2, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4The sad truth is that in reality these are only spec-sized in comparison to the earth. That picture is grossly exaggerated.
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+4It's a covert plan to build a space shield!
- rivalthecreator, on 09/26/2008, -2/+5Time to break out the tinfoil hat.
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+3wake me up! before you go go!
...oh.. thats an 'L'
:( - FTLJohnson, on 09/26/2008, -0/+3I'm not clear... what exactly are these pics... What space would look like if every satellite were 50x it's current size? (sort of like when you see a pin on google maps when you are zoomed out)
How exaggerated is this? Obviously pictures from space don't actually look like this, so what exactly is going on in these images? HOW specifically are they trying to represent this data? - weister42, on 09/26/2008, -1/+4Just keep piling up the junk then they'll start attracting each other and form a planet of some sort, and that's good.
That's what Bender told me last night at the bar. - BlakeEM, on 09/26/2008, -1/+4The moon is slowly moving away, so it's hardly "there for good."
- Murdats, on 09/26/2008, -3/+51. its really hard
2. its really expensive
3. nasa gets a fraction of a pittance, you are too busy wasting your money on bad wars and bad debts to invest in good science. - Inflammo, on 09/26/2008, -0/+3They go to a lake of fire and fry.
Won't see 'em again 'till the fourth of July - inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2http://www.universetoday.com/2007/08/16/sts-118-mi ...
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2It's not really scary in the slightest
- marc54, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2Catalog #25544 Launched: 06:40, November 20, 1998, otherwise known as The International Space Station.
Calalog #33312 Launched today, RAPIDEYE 2 is IAU#08040A
The USSPACECOM "Catalog" number:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Catalog_Num ...
Everything in earth orbit big enough to track gets a catalog number. In order words, there are no more than 33,315 "dots" on those images. In fact an 9/30/98 report:
http://books.google.com/books?id=FoSOD7fRdjAC&pg=P ...
says 8,668 objects + 33315-25544= 16,436 less 25% that have fallen out of orbit in the last 10 years, there are no more than 12,500 trackable objects in orbit right now, BFD. - aussieNickuss, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2The size of those objects in the pictures a over-exaggerated. If they were real photos taken from the same viewpoint, you wouldn't see a thing. Those individual object are probably hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres apart from one another.
- inactive, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2I didn't know we have satellites the size of Madagascar!
- Zalyster, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2Awesome, maybe. Scary, definitely! Just looking at the first picture really creeps me out. It may not be a completely accurate representation of the satellites in orbit, but it really puts it into perspective just how much we rely on technology these days.
- mpastrana, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2Too bad .. if they WERE that size, i bet you we wouldn't be stuck in this global warming hubbub (from the shadow they would cast).
/mp - sfour, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2put a few hundred robots up there, and let kids drive em like orbital pac mans.
- JYoungest1, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2This is old, I commented and said how horrible the scale was on this like 8 months ago. I hate you.
- KingGorilla, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2You put the boom boom into my heart
- dhughes, on 09/26/2008, -0/+2 The scale looks way off, the satellites are shown at a size that would be much larger than they actually are. Obviously it's enhanced so you can see them but the size of each satellite would be much smaller.
Also amazing is what would happen if there was an major accident causing a few satellites to be destroyed, a so-called Cascade Effect, where dozens of pieces impact other satellites destroying them which causes more destruction and eventually there's a ring or cloud of junk circling the Earth. -
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