There are an extraordinary number of man-made objects
spinning around the Earth. Some raw numbers: 1144 active satellites (over half
for the US) and another 2600+ inoperative ones. In addition, there are an
estimated 21,000 pieces of large (> 4”) and another 500,000 or so bits
between ¼’ and 4”.
All this stuff makes navigation through our near space
quite a challenge. Every new launch must find its way through this mine field
with data supplied by the United States Space
Surveillance Agency. Indeed, the Space Station frequently changes its orbit to
avoid collisions.
For a wonderful graphic interactive image
of the satellites currently in orbit in real time – you can zoom in and out and
change the plane of view – see:
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