Re:The sky's gone dark
by nateberkopec on Thursday October 01, 2015 @12:30PM
(#10312382)
I don't understand - what's the difference between a conjunction and a collision?
Conjunction is close approach between two orbiting objects.
Satellites may have to execute collision avoidance maneuvers and burn expensive fuel resources if the predicted trajectory brings debris too close for comfort.
Conjuctions are when the objects are within a certain distance (basically a safety margin, usually several kms), a collision is an actual strike.
Re:The sky's gone dark
by realquick81 on Thursday October 01, 2015 @01:00PM
(#10312624)
The words are self descriptive:
Collision = con + laedere = strike together (two things strike each other)
Conjunction = con + iungere = join together (two things become joined to each other)
Interesting paper where supercomputer was used to simulate the increase of particles greater than 10 cm in size over 100 years with high temporal resolution.
Results for BAU (business and usual) and BAU-d business as usual with decreasing breakup rate don't look so good: "linear growth of the catalog size with time, to ~65,000 objects by year 2100." 100 years from now there will be 50 conjunctions per day and 3 collisions per year.