Chinese Satellite Shatters in Space; Here's What Experts Say About the Crash

Space is now littered with junk all over the outskirts of the earth that pose a danger to space vehicles transiting through it safely.

A Chinese satellite got torn apart in space last March, leaving it in dozens of bits. After much study, researchers revealed the reason for its shattering to be tangible, not a supernatural explanation.

Russian rocket debris struck the Yunhai

According to Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell, it seems that a likely reason why the Chinese satellite, called Yunhai 1-02, was destroyed in space. He said that it was a part of a Russian rocket that struck the Chinese satellite, leaving it floating as more space debris, reported Sciencealert.

McDowell added that it was verified to be the biggest orbital head-on in ten years, seeing the event in the data of the US Space Force, mentioned in Twitter.

48078 is a small debris object from the Zenit-2 rocket that launched a Tselina-2 electronic spy sat in Sep 1996. Between 1997 and 2021, 8 debris objects were tracked from the rocket. This one, added to the catalog in Mar 2021, has only a single element set, epoch 2021 Mar 16
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) August 15, 2021

Sensors of the US military agency detected the fresh wreckage from the mid-March disintegration of the Chinese spacecraft Yunhai 1-02. It was launched in 2019, which is still reasonably new and fair enough not to split apart. There never was a decision on the cause.

Last Saturday, meanwhile, the Space Force quietly revised its space debris data with a new suggestion. An object 48078, a part of a Russian Zenit-2 rocket sent up in 1996, collided with the Chinese satellite.

McDowell started going over the Space Force data, saying a rocket segment and Yunhai satellite got as close as 1-kilometer distance, on the time and day when it got shattered in space as indicated by the data.

There was no way astronomers could know that both objects would be zipping around Earth at the speed of a bullet collide, causing more debris in space that will be of concern to space vehicles and satellites.

The approaching distance is still within the allowable threshold while both objects would be zipping around the earth at the speed of a bullet.

Any collision would have resulted in a debris explosion. Its impact broke the Yunhai into 37 known bits of shrapnel, and there might be an additional uncatalogued fragment, cited Sports Yahoo.

Chinese were able to control and make adjustments to their satellite, which is not as catastrophic a collision in March. Having more debris in space will be expected, with fewer deadly collisions.

Space junk increases

In 2009, the last time two big chunks did strike each other in orbit involved a Russian military satellite that sped into the path of an Iridium satellite over Siberia. Another earlier collision in 2007 caused more space debris to litter space.

Various false alarms and close encounters have occurred in other instances. Last October, a decommissioned Soviet satellite and a leftover Chinese rocket body zoomed past each other in space. These orbital models show that colliding with each other is possible!

A dead space telescope and an outdated US Air Force satellite did not crash over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, early in the year, in January 2020. The collisions in orbit demonstrate out of control.

Junk in space is all over as almost 130 million bits of debris are orbiting the earth, from satellite, broken space vehicle segments, with other space objects. That can compromise the ISS and Tiangong or rip through spacesuits in spacewalks.

A Chinese satellite got torn apart in space last March because of dangerous space debris that threatens anything in outer space, zipping at high speeds.