As the accumulation of debris increases in space, by Thursday night, Earth’s orbit is about to get “a lot more crowded, and a lot more dangerous”, according to a report by website Space.com.
A series of tweets by California based tracking company LeoLabs, reveals that two big pieces of space junk are zooming toward a close approach that will occur Thursday at 8:56 p.m. EDT (0056 GMT on Oct. 16).
The encounter will take place 616 miles (991 kilometers) above the South Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Antarctica.
LeoLab’s calculations estimate the probability of a collision to be more than 10%. The report states this to be “a scarily high number”, considering that the combined mass of the objects, hurtling towards each other at a relative velocity of 32,900 mph (52,950 km/h), is about 6,170 lbs. (2,800 kilograms).
2/ Current risk metrics from our most recent CDMs:
Miss distance: 12 meters (+18/-12 meters)
Probability of Collision: >10%, scaled to account for large object sizes
Relative velocity: 14.7 km/s pic.twitter.com/y44QXyhHJK— LeoLabs, Inc. (@LeoLabs_Space) October 14, 2020
“This event continues to be very high risk and will likely stay this way through the time of closest approach,” tweeted LeoLabs.
1/ This event continues to be very high risk and will likely stay this way through the time of closest approach. Our system generates new conjunction reports 6-8x per day on this event with new observation data each time. pic.twitter.com/d3tRbcV2P0
— LeoLabs, Inc. (@LeoLabs_Space) October 14, 2020
A “search-mode scan” scheduled for shortly after the close approach should reveal if a collision occurred and created more debris, LeoLabs tweeted later today.
3/ Shortly after TCA, we will have a direct pass of CZ-4C R/B over our Kiwi Space Radar in New Zealand. We have scheduled a search mode scan during this time to ensure we only see two objects as expected and hopefully confirm that no new debris is detected. pic.twitter.com/hcZsOF3uIT
— LeoLabs, Inc. (@LeoLabs_Space) October 14, 2020
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and satellite tracker, identified the two objects as a defunct Soviet navigation satellite called Parus (or Kosmos 2004) and a Chinese rocket stage.
“Here’s my own visualization of the encounter. Kosmos-2004 (red) is heading south towards the pole, CZ-4C-Y4 (purple) is heaeding north towards the Falklands.”, he said in a tweet.
Here’s my own visualization of the encounter. Kosmos-2004 (red) is heading south towards the pole, CZ-4C-Y4 (purple) is heading north towards the Falklands pic.twitter.com/qem7ojlhcy
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) October 14, 2020
In another tweet, he added that a smashup would likely result in a “significant (10 to 20 percent) increase in the LEO debris environment,” (LEO stands for low Earth orbit).
Not completely. Just a significant (10 to 20 percent) increase in the LEO debris environment
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) October 14, 2020
