When two satellites crashed into each other recently, spreading debris around in near-earth orbit, most people wondered what would happen to all that space junk and when we might expect it to fall to Earth. Thanks to a U.K. PhD student, the wondering is over. He’s built software that lets users track the debris via Google Earth.
Orbiting Frog’s ttfnRob says he built the software by taking tracking data from Celestrak and patching it through to Google Earth. The result is software that lets users track the debris in real-time.
And according to the latest info in this screenshot (Iridium debris in white, Russian debris in red), the detritus remains in relatively the same orbit as the now-defunct satellites:
Very cool. Still the tracking piece from Celestrak only includes radar-trackable pieces, so smaller fragments may be falling anywhere. Perhaps that’s what this Texas household encountered first hand.
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