A CHINESE MILITARY SATELLITE WAS REPORTEDLY SMASHED BY SPACE JUNK.

IS THIS THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF OUR EXPANDING SPACE GARBAGE PROBLEM?

Satellite Collision

According to Space.com, a Chinese military satellite looks to have been crushed by a disintegrating Russian rocket in the biggest orbital collision since 2009.

The collision highlights the growing threat of derelict spaceship pieces and other jetsam in Earth's orbit, where they might destroy functional equipment — as well as the incredible difficulty of determining what's going on in Earth's orbit.

Crash in Space

According to Harvard astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell's analysis, the Chinese satellite Yunhai 1-02 certainly collided with space trash early this year.

According to McDowell, the piece was originally part of a Zenit-2 rocket that launched a spy satellite in 1996. The rocket element was tagged with an unexpected entry, according to a database item discovered by McDowell: “Collided with satellite.”

McDowell commented, "This is a novel form of comment entry - haven't seen such a comment for any other satellites before."

Although the evidence is still speculative, McDowell discovered that the two objects were in close proximity earlier this year.

According to Space.com, the Yunhai satellite appears to have survived the crash and is still broadcasting radio signals.

Math of Collision

The more objects we send into orbit, the more likely it is that similar collisions will occur.

According to McDowell, “collisions are proportional to the square of the number of items in orbit.” “That is to say, if you have 10 times the number of satellites, you will have 100 times the number of collisions. As traffic density rises, crashes will rise from a minor to a substantial contributor to the space debris problem. “It's only math.”

In the worst-case situation, a single accident could set off a chain reaction, resulting in an exponential series of collisions, known as the "Kessler syndrome."

But for the time being, all we can do is pray it never comes to that.

READ MORE: Space collision: Chinese satellite got whacked by hunk of Russian rocket in March [Space.com]

More on space junk: Dangerous Debris From India’s Exploded Satellite Still Orbiting Earth

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