Woops: Two Satellites Crash Into Each Other

Two satellites in earth's orbit recently crashed into each other and caused a huge mess. "Cleanup in outerspace aisle 4!" Great, right when I was about to get off too.

In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today.

"As of about 12 hours ago, I think the head count was up (to around) 600 pieces," Carey told CBS News late today. "It's going to take about two days before we get a solid picture of what the debris fields look like. But you, I think, can imply that the majority of that should be probably along the same line as the original orbits."

Lovely, more space junk for me to run into in my rocket ship when I finally blast the hell out of here. And if you're having trouble understanding how two satellites could accidentally run into each other, just look at the image above, which is a rendering showing some of the 18,000 objects that are being tracked in earth's orbit. With that much stuff floating around, accidents are bound to happen. And speaking of which, Happy Birthday, son!

Two satellites collide in orbit [spaceflightnow]

Thanks to Dr Necropolis and E of R, who both agree this was planned by those devious Ruskies.

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