the tindog coffeehouse

This is cool. Or scary. But mainly cool. (As long as it doesn’t take out my DirecTV service.)

Via Gizmodo, the European Space Agency has released images of the approximately 6000 satellites and countless other man-made debris currently in orbit around the earth.

Yes, we knew that there was a lot of crap out there, but not to this extent. According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. Explosions in space are not disastrous on their own, but because of the aftermath. One example: a geostationary satellite travels at 6,213 miles per hour. If it explodes, all the debris stays near the orbit, forming a cloud around the Earth within a few days….

As one commenter pointed out, the objects in the images aren’t to scale, so they are a little misleading. But that still doesn’t detract from the danger all this space trash poses to operational satellites or astronauts. (Dangerous or not, though, it is still kinda cool. Right?)