late-night sky watchers across Australia witnessed a bright

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Sam Wormley

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:04 pm

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Space Weather News for Feb. 21, 2007
http://spaceweather.com

On February 19th, late-night sky watchers across Australia witnessed a bright explosion followed by a debris cloud that
hung in the sky for nearly an hour. At first a mystery, the source of the blast is now understood. It was a Russian
Briz-M rocket booster misplaced in orbit last year by the failed launch of an Arabsat communications satellite. The
fuel tanks of the Briz-M ruptured on Feb. 19th, producing a vivid naked-eye display and more than 1000 pieces of debris.
Experts are calling this a "major breakup event," comparable to or even worse than last month's Chinese anti-sat test.

Visit http://spaceweather.com for more information and pictures of the Briz-M breakup.

Quadibloc

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:24 pm

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Sam Wormley quoted:

Quote:

A little while ago, in sci.space.policy, someone quoted another
article, one about the Chinese anti-satellite test. Basically, the
article discussed the growing problem of debris in space - and
contained the frightening claim that the Chinese test may have been
the straw that ignites a chain-reaction of falling dominoes leading to
debris hitting satellites which make more debris hitting other
satellites, thereby breaking the back of the camels that hold up half
the sky.

Unlike this post, the article did not contain any mixed metaphors.

But if that rocket booster *was* hit by a stray piece of debris from
the Chinese anti-satellite test, that article could have been right.

John Savard

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