A dead NASA telescope and an old Air Force satellite have a 1-in-10 chance of crashing in space above Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday evening.
Experts call the odds „dangerous“ and „alarming,“ since a head-on collision could produce nearly 300,000 chunks of debris that would threaten other spacecraft.
LeoLabs, a company that tracks satellites and space debris, calculated that the two objects will pass dangerously close to one another - as close as 15 meters (50 feet) apart.
The US Air Force, which tracks satellites for the government, has not notified NASA of any potential collision, according to the space agency.
Two satellites might collide in space on Wednesday evening, when their orbits cross paths 560 miles (900 kilometers) above Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The larger object is an old space telescope called the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which was a joint mission between NASA, the Netherlands, and the UK. It ran out of fuel and died in November 1983. The other is a gravitational experiment called GGSE-4 that the US Air Force launched in May 1967.
The satellites will pass dangerously close to each other just 25 seconds before 6:40 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to LeoLabs, a company that uses radar to track satellites and debris in space.
LeoLabs calculated that the two objects will come within 15 to 30 meters (50 to 100 feet) of one another, a distance the group called „alarming“ on Twitter.
LeoLabs calculated a 1-in-100 chance of collision, but experts at The Aerospace Corporation ran their own simulation on Tuesday and found a 1-in-10 chance. Roger Thompson, a senior engineering specialist at The Aerospace Corporation, confirmed LeoLabs’s other calculations.
„This is one of the closest that we have ever seen,“ Thompson told Business Insider. „LeoLabs has pointed out a very dangerous conjunction.“
Foto: An illustration of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS).sourceNASA
The US Air Force, which tracks satellites for the government, had not notified NASA of any potential satellite collision as of Tuesday morning, the space agency told Business Insider in an email.
If the satellites collide, they could break apart and create a new cloud of debris orbiting Earth, which could then threaten other satellites and the International Space Station. If such orbital junk were ever to get too plentiful and out of control, it could cut off our access to space for hundreds of years.
Because IRAS is quite large, a collision would be dangerous, according to both satellite-tracking companies. LeoLabs said that space telescope is 3.6 meters (11.8 feet) long and 3.2 meters (10.5 feet) wide. Both satellites are moving quickly: 14.7 kilometers (9.1 miles) per second.
„Any time you have a high-velocity collision like that it’s serious, because the energy of the collision is so high that the debris gets spread into other orbits,“ Thompson said.
A head-on collision would produce about 290,000 chunks of debris that are at least 1 centimeter wide – the size that experts consider dangerous – Thompson calculated.
If the satellites crash, he added, observers on the ground in Pittsburgh would likely see a bright flash in the sky like a shooting star.
Foto: A projectile strikes a mock-up of a spacecraft in a NASA-Air Force test meant to simulate space debris collisions.sourceArnold Engineering Development Complex/Air Force
While a 1% to 10% chance of a hit may seem low, NASA routinely moves the International Space Station when the orbiting laboratory faces a 0.001% (1-in-100,000) chance or greater of a collision with an object.
But these two satellites can’t be controlled, Ted Muelhaupt, who leads The Aerospace Corporation’s satellite system analysis, told Business Insider.
„Nobody can do a thing about this no matter how well we’re tracking it because these are both dead objects,“ he said.
Thompson and Muelhaupt said the probability of a collision will probably change as the satellites approach each other, so researchers may have more precise estimates late Wednesday morning.
More space junk raises the risk of more dangerous collisions
Over 100 million bits of junk surround Earth, from abandoned satellites, spacecraft that broke apart, and other missions. Each piece of that debris, no matter how small, travels at speeds high enough to inflict catastrophic damage to vital equipment. A single hit could be deadly to astronauts on a spacecraft.
Each collision that occurs makes the problem worse, since it fragments satellites or debris into smaller pieces.
„Each time there’s a big collision, it’s a big change in the LEO [low-Earth orbit] environment,“ LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley previously told Business Insider.
In 2007, China tested an anti-satellite missile by blowing up one of its own weather satellites. Two years later, an American spacecraft accidentally collided with a Russian one. Those two events alone increased the amount of large debris in low-Earth orbit by about 70%.
„Because of that, now there’s sort of a debris belt,“ Ceperley said.
If the space-junk problem gets extreme, a disastrous chain of collisions could spiral out of control and surround Earth in an impassable field of debris. This possibility is known as a Kessler event, after Donald J. Kessler, who worked for NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Kessler calculated in a 1978 paper that it could take hundreds of years for such debris to clear up enough to make spaceflight safe again.
„It is a long-term effect that takes place over decades and centuries,“ Thompson said. „Anything that makes a lot of debris is going to increase that risk.“
If the two satellites collide head-on Wednesday evening, half of the cloud of debris would shoot up away from Earth, and the other half would spread into lower orbits among other satellites and the space station, Thompson said. At first, it would be a cylinder-shaped field of debris that would be dangerous to pass through. After a few days, he said, the debris cloud would spread out.
Collisions in space are becoming more likely as more satellites fill the sky. Companies like SpaceX, Amazon, OneWeb, and perhaps even Apple plan to launch tens of thousands of new satellites this decade to form internet-providing „megaconstellations.“
In September, the European Space Agency (ESA) had to maneuver one of its spacecraft at the last minute to avoid colliding with a SpaceX satellite. The chance of that crash was 1-in-1,000.
Foto: The first batch of 60 high-speed Starlink internet satellites, each weighing about 500 pounds, flat-packed into a stack prior to their launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on May 23, 2019.sourceSpaceX via Twitter
What’s more, as older satellites like IRAS die, there is no system in place to remove them from orbit.
„Events like this highlight the need for responsible, timely deorbiting of satellites for space sustainability moving forward,“ LeoLabs tweeted about Wednesday’s potential crash.
Pulling dead satellites out of orbit could prevent crashes
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which licenses private companies‘ satellite launches, is considering new regulations to address the issue of space debris.
But as of yet, there is no silver bullet for the many metal chunks rocketing around Earth, nor for the swarms of dead satellites that threaten to create more debris.
One potential solution, however, is a proposed ESA clean-up mission that aims to capture one of the agency’s defunct satellites in a net, drag it into Earth’s atmosphere, and burn it there. Private companies – including Tethers Unlimited, TriSept Corp., and a Boeing subsidiary called Millennium Space Systems - have explored similar concepts for larger-scale space clean-up.
Foto: An illustration of the ESA’s e.Deorbit system to net and remove old satellites from orbit.sourceDavid Ducros/ESA
Those companies could one day use LeoLabs’s data to identify high-risk satellites, track them down, and pull them out of orbit to reduce the chances of space collisions and the clouds of debris that they create.
„A lot of the risk comes from this small debris, all this stuff that’s never been tracked before. Nobody’s got a good solution to clean that up,“ Ceperley previously told Business Insider. „Let’s make sure we don’t make more of it.“
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
