Russian Space Junk Allegedly Smashed a Chinese Military Satellite This Year - Reports

A Russian rocket seemed to destroy a Chinese military satellite in the biggest orbital collision since 2009.

The reason for the incident was not revealed at the time. Still, it was later discovered to be a collision between a Chinese satellite and a piece of space junk.

Space.com said that the collision highlights the rising risk of derelict spaceship components and other space debris in Earth's orbit. The crash may destroy working equipment and the incredible difficulty of determining what is going on in Earth's orbit.

Space Crash

In a Twitter thread, Harvard scientist Jonathan McDowell said that the Chinese satellite Yunhai 1-02 collided with space debris early this year.

The scientist noted the new type of remark entry on Twitter. He added that he saw that incident for the first time among satellites.

McDowell said that the component was originally part of a Zenit-2 rocket that launched a spy in the sky in 1996. According to McDowell's database record discovered, the rocket element was marked with an odd entry and collided with a satellite.

While the evidence is still speculative, McDowell discovered that the two objects were nearby earlier this year.

According to Space.com, the Yunhai satellite seemed to have outlived the crash and is still broadcasting radio signals.

Digital Trends said that the collision broke 37 items. Undoubtedly, there are more that have yet to be uncovered, the same report added.

Most notably, despite the damage and the collision that happened at 780 kilometers, Yunhai 1-02 is believed to have survived the impact and is still operational. In fact, according to McDowell, amateur radio operators are still picking up signals from the satellite.

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation mentioned in the same Digital Trends report that the Yunhai 1-02 will be used to research atmospheric, maritime, and space habitats and disaster control and other scientific studies when it was launched in 2019.

Here Is How McDowell Calculated the Collision

Collisions, according to McDowell, are proportional to the square of the number of objects in orbit.

He stated that if you have ten times the number of satellites, you will have 100 times the number of collisions. If traffic density increases, McDowell said that accidents will shift from a minor component of the space debris problem to a significant component.

A single accident might set off a chain reaction in the worst-case situation, resulting in an exponential succession of collisions. It is known as the 'Kessler syndrome,' Futurism said.

Tracking little trash and junk could be challenging, and there is already a lot of it up there. European Space Agency (ESA) said that around 900,000 particles with a diameter of 1 to 10 centimeters (0.4 inches to 4 inches) are flying about our globe.

According to ESA, Earth orbit has 128 million pieces of trash with diameters ranging from 1 millimeter to 1 centimeter (0.04 inches to 0.4 inches 1 cm).

Even little fragments of debris may do severe damage to a satellite because orbiting objects travel so quickly, around 17,150 mph (27,600 kph) at the height of the International Space Station, for example.

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