The European Space Agency devoted some computer time to this representation of all the space junk orbiting the earth.
It shows trackable objects in low-Earth orbit from the aspect of the North Pole. Low-Earth orbit is the domain of many commercial, military, scientific and navigational satellites as well as debris, which drift for decades before eventually burning up in Earth's atmosphere.
Yikes.
Wow, this is awesome. But note the scale of the symbols. Each piece of debris looks to be almost the size of Madagascar or something, so the image is a little misleading. Still a very important rendering, though.
Cue Devo in 3, 2, 1.....
Can you enlarge the pic? I think I spotted a missing piece of my luggage there....
Max Headroom predicted this 20 years ago and its going to come true soon: "Skyfall", the new festival to replace Mardi Gras with a world-wide fest celebrating the day every year when companies intentionally down their garbage satellites.
Cue sales of Skyfall brand binoculars, telescopes, and steel umbrellas now...
Ah, so that's what's causing global warming -- all that junk burning up in the atmosphere. ;)
So we can be satisfied to just clutter up and f@#$ up our own planet... we have to start cluttering space with our junk. we know very little of our own planet and we are only now finding out how pissed it is at how we have been treating it. Now we know relatively very little about space and we want to test its wrath as well.
not a smart idea, lets stop being careless, we are the messy roommate that nobody wants. We are close to being kicked out.