Comment on Musk’s Starlink hit with hours-long outage after rollout of T-Mobile satellite service
sepi@piefed.social 8 months agoStarlinks are in too low an orbit to cause Kessler Syndrome.
Is that accurate though? Assume a satellite is in a decaying orbit (thus too low to contribute to Kessler syndrome on its own) and another satellite is in a different orbit eccentricity-wise but they both collide. Are we certain that none of the pieces from the collision would acquire enough speed to become boloids that contribute to Kessler syndrome?
Time to go down the rabbit hole that is orbital mechanics for me again. Byeeee lol
For your question, no. There’s no way for an object to have an orbit that doesn’t intersect the same altitude where an impulse happened. They could be knocked into an eccentric orbit, but it at least has to have the lowest point at the highest point of the Starlink network.
This is not to say it can’t hit something else after that changes the perigee at a later point in it’s orbit, thus lifting it higher. For a single collusion though, no, at least with the collision alone.
A year is actually quite a short time (in terms of deorbiting).
As for your previous question yes a collision at starlink orbit could send some shrapnel to higher orbit planes however a majority would be in highly eccentric orbits that would decay quickly on the low end.
The issue would be a starlink collision then hitting something in a higher orbit causing Kessler syndrome in that orbit. The odds of this are still next to zero but never zero.
but they pollute the night sky visually and that’s nearly as bad.
I mean, no it’s not.
Kessler syndrome is about a chain reaction that destroys everything in orbit and keeps us from accessing space for years.
Ruining your view is not “nearly as bad”. That makes you sound like one of those folks on Martha’s Vineyard, opposing offshore wind turbines that local communities desperately need, because they’ll “ruin the view”.
The night sky is also polluted by your home’s lighting and car headlights but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for most people.
yeah, you can’t turn off your home’s lighting, additionally everyone lives in citiee anyway, so it’s moot!
Okay, try turning your lights off tonight and report back with how many additional stars you can see.
I mean… it’s not. One problem solves itself over time if not touched, the other is permanent and prevents us from leaving the planet.
Learn something new every day, thanks!
cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 months ago
All they can do is pollute the atmosphere we sometimes breath in even more.