Google Earth: satellites in orbit

[Squisher]

http://www.wimp.com/satellitesorbit/

I never knew there were this many or that there were any that far out.

 

[Dominato3r]

And what happens when we dont need them anymore?

 

[Newbian]

I wonder how many of them are still used and how many of them are simply space junk.

 

[rcpratt]

Cool.

 

[NoReMoRsE]

Skynet!!!

 

[SKORPI0]

I wonder how many of them are still used and how many of them are simply space junk.

Space Debris

 

[RavenSEAL]

Wow, that is some crazy shit

 

[ElFenix]

http://www.wimp.com/satellitesorbit/

I never knew there were this many or that there were any that far out.

geostationary orbit is over 22,000 miles up. that's nearly 3x earth's diameter (about 8000 miles).

 

[coxmaster]

Here is another cool way to look at this stuff
http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/3d/JTrack3D.html

 

[OCGuy]

I think it looks worse than it is. If you spread 13,000 objects across my county, let alone the earth, they wouldnt look that close together.

 

[Eli]

Space Debris

Holy shit.

I cannot imagine that we can continue like this without somehow cleaning that shit up?!

Does this mean that in addition to calculating the orbits of all other satellites, they have to do it for all of that garbage too?? LOL.

 

[IronWing]

Holy shit.

I cannot imagine that we can continue like this without somehow cleaning that shit up?!

Does this mean that in addition to calculating the orbits of all other satellites, they have to do it for all of that garbage too?? LOL.

We need QUARK!

 

[destrekor]

Holy shit.

I cannot imagine that we can continue like this without somehow cleaning that shit up?!

Does this mean that in addition to calculating the orbits of all other satellites, they have to do it for all of that garbage too?? LOL.

Looking at it as large dots circling a decently-sized marble, it looks terribly crowded.

I imagine when actually sitting in space, floating next to any one satellite, you probably would have a very difficult time even seeing any other satellites.
Think of it like this:
Each one of those satellites are maybe the size of a handful of humans lumped together. And they are spread out over a massive cubic volume.

If you made a sphere, with a single plane where all points are equidistant from the center, and made that sphere exactly the same size as Earth, and then placed all of those satellites all over that sphere, it still wouldn't be crowded. Now, the satellites that need a specific location in space to do their work wouldn't fare well, but it wouldn't be a problem fitting them all in comfortably with no navigation issues to really worry about.

Now, keep imaging that, but now make a second sphere, 4 times the radius of the first sphere, and allow all satellites to fill the void between the two spheres... they could throw 5 times the number of satellites into that void and not see an issue.
Though the issue does come into play with degrading orbits, as very few satellites will permanently stay in space, far far too close to make that possible - they simply have orbits that will take decades to degrade to the point that they reenter the atmosphere. But it would take a massively error-filled calculation to put a satellite up somewhere that it eventually becomes a serious risk of collision with another satellite on it's journey back.
They don't just put satellites into space without any work - they don't throw them into some point in space, turn it on, and hope all is good.

 

[Sluggo]

I think it looks worse than it is. If you spread 13,000 objects across my county, let alone the earth, they wouldnt look that close together.

Yeah in that animation they are probably the size of Texas or something.

 

[Powermoloch]

wow, that's amazing :O

 

[guyver01]

And these...

are just the ones providing tv service

 

[MetalMat]

For some reason this really worries me :/

 

[mafia]

Can anyone find Sputnik?

 

[So]

Can anyone find Sputnik?

Sputnik fell out of the sky a few months after it was launched. Many early satellites did.

 

[Ms. DICKINSON]

We need some space magnets to collect all those junks.

 

[guyver01]

We need some space magnets to collect all those junks.

There is probably very little "junk" satellites in orbit actually. Space is a premium for orbital slots in the Clarke Belt, and any company that isn't using their slot, is paying alot of money for no reason.

That... and the fact there's so many satellites up there, any floating debris presents a real hazard to working satellites that they try to deorbit satellites before they become a real issue.

It's not fun when some companies junk bird crashes into your working telecom sat and causes $1.3billion in damage/downtime/repair costs.

 

[Pardus]

The most up-to-date data comes from CelesTrak which is funded by the Center for Space Standards and Innovation, located in Colorado Springs. As of writing there are over 13,000 satellites in orbit and over 20,500 satellites have decayed since 1957. Looking carefully at the data it appears that there are just under 3,500 satellites that are both functioning and in their correct orbit compared to nearly 10,000 that are classed as debris but haven't yet decayed. So 75% of the satellites orbiting the Earth are junk!

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