WASHINGTON: Two decommissioned satellites sped past each other Wednesday after experts had warned they may collide at a combined speed of 33,000 miles (53,000 kilometers) an hour, sending thousands of pieces of debris hurtling through space. The satellites — a pioneering international space telescope and an experimental US craft traveling in opposing orbits — “crossed paths without incident,” a spokesman for US Space Command told AFP. Crashes involving large satellites at very high speeds (known as hypervelocity) are rare and dangerous, generating clouds of debris that endanger spacecraft around the planet. The Infrared Astronomical Satellites (IRAS) space telescope was launched in 1983 as a joint project of NASA, Britain and the Netherlands, and its mission lasted only 10 months. If they had hit, they could have created around a thousand pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters, and more than 12,000 fragments bigger than one centimeter, astrodynamicist Dan Oltrogge told AFP.

Source: Pakistan Today January 30, 2020 14:21 UTC