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Comment by Jeffrey Michael Paganini on September 13, 2009 at 3:43am

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Space / Stars
The Violent, Mysterious Dynamics of Star Formation
Lighting up the universe is a rough-and-tumble business.

by Adam Frank
From the February 2009 issue, published online March 26, 2009

Yahoo! Buzz
Astronomers realized that spinning disks of gas always form around the nucleus of a new star, feeding it matter and serving as an incubator for the development of planets. The disks form because of the natural rotation of the original gas clouds. Just as a spinning ice-skater who pulls her arms inward will increase the speed of her spin, gas in a collapsing cloud will rotate more quickly until it naturally forms a spinning disk. If interstellar magnetic fields thread the cloud, then they, too, will be carried downward with the collapsing, spinning gas. The twisting magnetic fields will act as drive belts, tapping the enormous energy of the spinning disk to launch powerful jets of gas along the axis of the disk and back out into space.

These jets are remarkably long lived, driving 10 light-years or more across the star-forming environment. The discovery of jets pushing away from dust-shrouded protostars at hundreds of miles per second was the first hint to astronomers that star formation was a far more chaotic process than they had envisioned.

Over the past couple of decades, intense effort in both theory and observation allowed astronomers to develop a coherent, consistent picture of how single stars were born that included gas disks and jets. But researchers knew their story was still woefully incomplete because it did not take into account how one star’s formation might affect another’s. “The problem,” Goodman explains, “is that you need to see into the entire cloud where many stars are forming at once. But the clouds are dense, and they extend over large chunks of the sky. You need new instruments, and you have to be systematic if you really want to understand what is going on.”


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Spitzer was built, in part, to answer these needs.

With Spitzer’s three-foot-wide infrared eye, astronomers can see deep into the youngest stellar nurseries where stars are just beginning to form. They can see protostellar disks taking shape and pushing their jets out into space, and they have worked to integrate the new data with results from optical and radio telescopes (radio waves, millimeter wavelengths in particular, can penetrate the dust and gas too). Combining radio and infrared observations, researchers like Goodman and Arce created high-resolution, multiwavelength images of entire star-forming clouds. This multiyear, multi-institution project, called the Complete Survey, gave astronomers the view they needed to study star formation in a global context. Finally they could map out the detailed nature of interactions between infant stars and their environment, and a true portrait of star formation began to emerge.

“You really have to think about star formation in a kind of urban, suburban, and rural context,” Goodman says. “It matters who you are born close to, and it also matters what you mean by ‘close.’”

Stellar nurseries come in low- and high-mass varieties. In the high-mass kind, like the great Orion nebula, which is about 1,500 light-years away, stars are packed together like a swarm of bees. (In our neighborhood of the galaxy, the sun floats alone in a cube about three light-years on a side. In a high-mass star-forming cluster, thousands of stars occupy the same amount of space.) More important, high-mass clusters produce high-mass stars—brightly burning nuclear furnaces 10 to 100 times the mass of our sun. These behemoths live fast and die young. Our sun will burn for 10 billion years, but high-mass stars are lucky to make it to 10 million. “Massive stars have a huge impact on star formation,” Bally says. “They emit powerful winds and a lot of ultraviolet radiation.” The winds and UV light tear apart the surrounding gas, carving vast, glowing “blisters” that disrupt the cloud. This turmoil can inhibit other stars from forming—or promote star birth in other regions.

The picture of star formation given to us by infrared telescopes is one of unexpected violence, and it is this violence that is the key to understanding why there are so few stars.Only over the past decade have astronomers come to understand how common and significant the feedback between stars and their stellar nurseries can be. “There is a kind of self-regulation going on,” Bally says. “The stars that form can change their own star-forming environment.” The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle nebula (pictured in one of the most famous images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope) are one clear example of this feedback. Like the dense rock spires that form from erosion in a windblown desert, the gaseous pillars in the Eagle nebula have been shaped and compressed by the stellar winds and energetic ultraviolet light from the nebula’s massive stars. Spitzer images of the Eagle nebula show that this compression is in turn triggering the formation of new stars within the pillars.

The complex environment in which a star forms affects the creation of planets, too. In fact, the effect of massive stars on the disks around infant stars—where planets arise—can be deadly. “The UV radiation from a massive star will ionize and heat up disks of gas surrounding nearby low-mass stars,” Bally says. “The gas in the disks will then evaporate into space. It can take a planet 10 million years to form, but the UV radiation from a massive star can burn away the outer part of a disk in just 10,000 years.” With their gas depleted, it may be impossible for the disks around stars in massive clusters to form giant planets like Jupiter or Saturn. It might still be possible for an Earth-like world to form close to a star where the disk is undisturbed, but that point remains debatable.

Massive stars can also cause havoc within a cloud when they die. At the end of its life, a massive star inevitably explodes as a supernova. This dumps apocalyptic quantities of energy into the surroundings: A supernova can briefly outshine an entire galaxy. Supernovas also create all the elements heavier than iron. With such short lifetimes, massive stars expire close to where they were born, often still within the star-forming region where they began.

Some astronomers have argued that the formation of our sun was triggered by a blast wave from a nearby stellar explosion. “There is strong evidence that our own solar system was born near a massive star that went supernova,” Bally says. “Even if our formation wasn’t triggered by a supernova, the presence of decay products of certain radioactive elements points to a supernova perhaps seeding the already formed young solar system with enriched elements.” This implies that our star was born near the edge of a high-mass cluster—close enough to feel the effects of a supernova, but not so deep inside that our protoplanetary disk was shredded.

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Comment by Jeffrey Michael Paganini on September 4, 2009 at 1:26pm

This group only requires one member, if you wish to add welcomed, all will be published. this is an informative site which most are not involved to research of the subject matter. But please if you have anything in the subject matter please post.
Ground Control To Major Tom....

Comment by Jeffrey Michael Paganini on September 3, 2009 at 11:54am

Space debris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
I have written about this subject for many years...surferpags
Space debris populations seen from outside geosynchronous orbit.Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by humans, and that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust, and slag from solid rocket motors, coolant released by RORSAT nuclear powered satellites, deliberate insertion of small needles, and other small particles.[1] Clouds of very small particles may cause erosive damage, like sandblasting. Space "junk" has become a growing concern in recent years, since collisions at orbital velocities can be highly damaging to functional satellites and can also produce even more space debris in the process. This is called the Kessler Syndrome. Some spacecraft, like the International Space Station, are now armored to mitigate damage from this hazard.[2] Astronauts on space-walks are also vulnerable.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Tracking
2.1 Gabbard diagrams
3 Measurement
4 Mitigation
5 Incidents
5.1 Debris creation events
5.2 Debris impacts events
6 International agreements
7 Space debris in fiction
8 See also
9 References
10 External links



[edit] History

The "energy flash" of a hypervelocity impact during a simulation of what happens when a piece of orbital debris hits a spacecraft in orbit.In 1958, the United States launched a satellite named Vanguard I. It became one of the longest surviving pieces of space junk and as of March 2008[update] remains the oldest piece still in orbit.[3]

According to Edward Tufte's book Envisioning Information, space debris objects have included a glove lost by astronaut Ed White on the first American space-walk; a camera Michael Collins lost near the spacecraft Gemini 10; garbage bags jettisoned by the Soviet Mir cosmonauts throughout the space station's 15-year life;[3] and a wrench and toothbrush. Sunita Williams of STS-116 also lost a camera during EVA. In an EVA to reinforce a torn solar panel during STS-120, a pair of pliers was lost and most recently, during STS-126, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper lost a briefcase-sized tool bag in one of the mission's EVAs. Most of those everyday objects have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere within weeks due to the orbits where they were released. Items like these are not major contributors to the space debris environment. On the other hand, explosion events are a major contribution to the space debris problem. About 100 tons of fragments generated during approximately 200 such events are still in orbit.[citation needed] Thus space debris is most concentrated in low Earth orbit, though some extends out past geosynchronous orbit.

The first official Space Shuttle collision avoidance maneuver was during STS-48 in September 1991. A 7-second reaction control system burn was performed to avoid debris from the Cosmos satellite 955.[citation needed]

On March 27, 2007, wreckage from a Russian spy satellite passed dangerously close to a Lan Chile (LAN Airlines) Airbus A340, which was travelling between Santiago, Chile, and Auckland, New Zealand carrying 270 passengers.[4] The plane was flying over the Pacific Ocean, which is considered one of the safest places in the world for a satellite to come down because of its large areas of uninhabited water.

While there was concern over the Skylab space station's possible impact point, in the end, it proved groundless. The original plans called for Skylab to remain in space for another 8 to 10 years after its final mission in February 1974. Unexpectedly high solar activity pushed the space station's orbit closer to Earth than planned. On July 11, 1979, Skylab re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated, raining debris harmlessly along a path extending over the southern Indian Ocean and sparsely populated areas of western Australia.[5][6]

A hazard analysis conducted for a planned October 2008 mission of the space shuttle Atlantis concluded that its greatest risk was from space debris, with a 1-in-185 chance of catastrophic impact. This level of risk requires a top-level launch decision. Whereas a typical space shuttle mission to the International Space Station, at a 200-nautical-mile (370 km) altitude, involves a 1-in-300 risk, the risk is greater in a mission such as this one to the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits at a 300 nmi (560 km) altitude where there is more debris. Risk mitigation plans for this mission included flying the shuttle tail-first, placing the main engines as the first contact with any debris.[7]

The first major space debris collision was on February 10, 2009 at 16:56 UTC. The deactivated Kosmos-2251 and an operational Iridium 33 collided 789 kilometres (490 mi)[8] over northern Siberia. The relative speed of impact was about 11.7 kilometres per second (7.3 mi/s), or approximately 42,120 kilometres per hour (26,170 mph).[9] Both satellites were destroyed.[10] The collision scattered considerable debris, which poses an elevated risk to spacecraft.[11]


[edit] Tracking

Gabbard diagram of almost 300 debris from the disintegration of the 5-months old third stage of the Chinese Long March 4 booster on March 11, 2000. The spread of debris to longer orbital periods and higher apogees indicates that those debris were propelled in the prograde direction.Both radar and optical detectors, such as lasers, are the main tools used for tracking space debris. However, determining orbits to allow reliable re-acquisition is problematic. Tracking objects smaller than 10 cm (4 in) is difficult due to their small cross-section and reduced orbital stability, though debris as small as 1 cm (0.4 in) can be tracked.[12][13]


[edit] Gabbard diagrams
Space debris groups resulting from satellite breakups are often studied using scatterplots known as Gabbard diagrams. In a Gabbard diagram the perigee and apogee altitudes of the individual debris fragments resulting from a collision are plotted with respect to the orbital period of each fragment. The distribution of the resulting diagram can be used to infer information such as direction and point of impact.[14][15]



[edit] Measurement

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) is an important source of information on the small particle space debris environmentThe U.S. Strategic Command maintains a catalogue currently containing about 13,000 objects, in part to prevent misinterpretation as hostile missiles. Observation data gathered by a number of ground based radar facilities and telescopes as well as by a space based telescope is used to maintain this catalogue.[16] Nevertheless, the majority of debris objects remain unobserved. There are more than 600,000 objects larger than 1 cm (0.4 in) in orbit (according to the ESA Meteoroid and Space Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference, the MASTER-2005 model).

Other sources of knowledge on the actual space debris environment include measurement campaigns by the ESA Space Debris Telescope, TIRA,[17] Goldstone radar, Haystack radar,[18] and the Cobra Dane phased array radar.[19] The data gathered during these campaigns is used to validate models of the debris environment like ESA-MASTER. Such models are the only means of assessing the impact risk caused by space debris as only larger objects can be regularly tracked.

Returned space debris hardware is also a valuable source of information on the (submillimetre) space debris environment. The LDEF satellite deployed by STS-41-C Challenger and retrieved by STS-32 Columbia spent 68 months in orbit. The close examination of its surfaces allowed the analysis of the directional distribution and the composition of debris flux. The EURECA satellite deployed by STS-46 Atlantis in 1992 and retrieved by STS-57 Endeavour in 1993 could provide additional insight.

The solar arrays of the Hubble Space Telescope returned during missions STS-61 Endeavour and STS-109 Columbia are an important source of information on the debris environment. The impact craters found on the surface were counted and classified by ESA to provide another means for validating debris environment models.

NASA Orbital Debris Observatory tracked space debris using a 3 m (10 ft) liquid mirror transit telescope.[20]


[edit] Mitigation

Spatial density of space debris by altitude according to ESA MASTER-2001.In order to mitigate the generation of additional space debris, a number of measures have been proposed: The passivation of spent upper stages by the release of residual fuels is aimed at reducing the risk of on-orbit explosions that could generate thousands of additional debris objects.

Taking satellites out of orbit at the end of their operational life would also be an effective mitigation measure. This could be facilitated with a "terminator tether," an electrodynamic tether that is rolled out, and slows down the spacecraft.[21] In cases when a direct (and controlled) de-orbit would require too much fuel, a satellite can also be brought to an orbit where atmospheric drag would cause it to de-orbit after some years. Such a maneuver was successfully performed with the French Spot-1 satellite, bringing its time to atmospheric reentry down from a projected 200 years to about 15 years by lowering its perigee from 830 km (516 mi) to about 550 km (342 mi).[22]


[edit] Incidents

[edit] Debris creation events
The largest space debris incident in history was the Chinese anti-satellite weapon test on January 11, 2007.[23] The event was estimated to have created more than 2300 pieces (updated 2007-12-13) of trackable debris (approximately golf ball size or larger), over 35,000 pieces 1 cm (0.4 in) or larger, and 1 million pieces 1 mm (0.04 in) or larger. The debris event is more significant than previous anti-satellite tests in that the debris field has a higher orbit altitude[clarification needed], resulting in deorbit times of 35 years and greater. In June 2007, NASA's Terra environmental spacecraft was the first to be moved in order to prevent impacts from this debris.[24]

An event of similar magnitude occurred on February 19, 2007, when a Russian Briz-M booster stage exploded in orbit over Australia. The booster had been launched on February 28, 2006, carrying an Arabsat-4A communication satellite but malfunctioned before it could use all of its fuel. The explosion was captured on film by several astronomers, but due to the path of the orbit the debris cloud has been hard to quantify using radar. Although similar in magnitude, the debris field is at a lower altitude[clarification needed] than the Chinese anti-satellite test and much debris will re-enter the atmosphere in a relatively short time. As of February 21, 2007, over 1,000 fragments had been identified.[25][26] A third breakup event also occurred on 14 February 2007 as recorded by Celes Trak.[27] In 2006, the most breakups occurred since 1993 with eight breakups.[28]

Additionally on February 20, 2008, the U.S. launched an SM-3 Missile from the USS Lake Erie specially designed to destroy a defective U.S. spy satellite feared to carry 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine fuel. The debris created by this event occurring at about 250 km (155 mi) altitude results in all the debris having a perigee of 250 km (155 mi) or lower. Although the apogee of some debris may be higher due to the explosion, the low perigee altitude will cause all debris to re-enter the atmosphere in a relatively short time period.[29]

On Tuesday, February 10, 2009, the retired Kosmos-2251 Russian satellite with a mass of 950-kilograms (2,094 lb) collided 500 miles above Siberia with the Iridium 33 commercial satellite weighing 560-kilograms (1,235 lb) . The collision created a debris cloud; although accurate estimates of the number of pieces of debris are not yet available.[30]


[edit] Debris impacts events

Saudi officials inspect a crashed PAM-D module, January 2001.The first verified collision with catalogued space debris occurred in 1996, tearing off a boom from the French satellite Cerise.[31]

Only one person has ever been recorded hit by manmade space debris: in 1997 an Oklahoma woman named Lottie Williams was hit in the shoulder by a 10 x 13 cm piece of blackened, woven metallic material that was later confirmed to be part of the fuel tank of a Delta II rocket which had launched a U.S. Air Force satellite in 1996. She was not injured.[32][33][34]

On January 12, 2001, a Star 48 Payload Assist Module (PAM-D) rocket upper stage reentered the atmosphere after a "catastrophic orbital decay".[35] The PAM-D stage, designated US Satellite Number 22659, International Designator 1993-032C crashed in the sparsely populated Saudi Arabian desert, where it was positively identified. The module was the upper-stage rocket booster for NAVSTAR 32, a GPS satellite launched in 1993.


[edit] International agreements
There is no international treaty mandating behavior which minimizes space debris, but the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) did publish voluntary guidelines in 2007.[36] As of 2008, the committee is discussing international "rules of the road" to prevent collisions between satellites.[37] NASA has implemented its own procedures for limiting debris production[38] as have some other space agencies.


[edit] Space debris in fiction
The problems caused by space debris are a major theme in the manga / anime Planetes.[citation needed]

In the computer-animated film WALL-E, the scene in which the two main characters are leaving an over polluted Earth shows their spacecraft passing through a belt of orbiting debris.[39]


[edit] See also
Near-Earth object
Kessler Syndrome
J002E3
6Q0B44E
Liability Convention
Orbital Debris Co-ordination Working Group
Registration Convention
2009 satellite collision
Space archaeology

[edit] References
^ "Technical report on space debris" (PDF). United Nations. 1999. http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/reports/ac105/AC105_720E.pdf. Retrieved 2006-04-05. ISBN 92-1-100813-1
^ Thoma, K.; Wicklein, M.; Schneider, E. (2005-08). "New Protection Concepts for Meteoroid / Debris Shields". in D. Danesy (editor). Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Space Debris (ESA SP-587). ESA/ESOC. pp. 445. 18–20 April 2005 in Darmstadt, Germany. Abstract.
^ a b Space junk, USA WEEKEND Magazine, by Julian Smith, August 26, 2007
^ [1], Flaming space junk narrowly misses jet, Mar. 28, 2007
^ NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Center. "NASA - Part I - The History of Skylab". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/f_skylab1.html. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
^ Kennedy Space Center. "NASA - John F. Kennedy Space Center Story". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/history/story/ch10.html. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
^ Aviation Week & Space Technology, Vol. 169 No. 10, 15 Sept. 2008, "Debris Danger", p. 18
^ . http://www.n2yo.com/collision-between-two-satellites.php.
^ Paul Marks, New Scientist, Satellite collision 'more powerful than China's ASAT test, 13 February 2009 (putting the collision speed at 42,120 kilometres per hour (11.7 km/s))
^ http://spaceweather.com/glossary/collidingsatellites.htm
^ Iannotta, Becky (2009-02-11). "U.S. Satellite Destroyed in Space Collision". Space.com. http://www.space.com/news/090211-satellite-collision.html. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
^ http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bullet109/chapter16_bul109.pdf
^ http://cddis.nasa.gov/lw13/docs/papers/adv_greene_1m.pdf
^ Portree, David and Loftus, Joseph (1999) (PDF). Orbital Debris: A Chronology. NASA. http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/TP-1999-208856.pdf. See p.13.
^ Whitlock, David O. (2004) (PDF). History of On-Orbit Satellite Fragmentations. NASA JSC. http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/library/SatelliteFragHistory/13thEditionofBreakupBook.pdf. "Gabbard diagrams of the early debris cloud prior to the effects of perturbations, if the data were available, are reconstructed. These diagrams often include uncataloged as well as cataloged debris data. When used correctly, Gabbard diagrams can provide important insights into the features of the fragmentation."
^ "The Space-Based Visible Program". MIT Lincoln Laboratory. http://www.ll.mit.edu/ST/sbv/sbv_table_of_contents.html. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ Klinkrad, H.. "Monitoring Space - Efforts Made by European Countries" (PDF). http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/track/klinkrad.pdf. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ "MIT Haystack Observatory". http://www.haystack.mit.edu/. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ "AN/FPS-108 COBRA DANE". http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/track/cobra_dane.htm. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/measure/optical.html
^ Christensen, Bill. "The Terminator Tether Aims to Clean Up Low Earth Orbit". http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_tether_041117.html. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ Peter B. de Selding. "CNES Begins Deorbiting Spot-1 Earth Observation Satellite". Space News. http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive03/cnesarch_120103.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
^ "Chinese ASAT Test". http://www.centerforspace.com/asat/. Retrieved 2007-07-04.
^ Burger, Brian. "NASA's Terra Satellite Moved to Avoid Chinese ASAT Debris". http://www.space.com/news/070706_sn_china_terra.html. Retrieved 2007-07-06.
^ "Rocket Explosion". Spaceweather.com. 22 February 2007. http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=21&month=02&year=2007. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
^ Than, Ker (21 February 2007). "Rocket Explodes Over Australia, Showers Space with Debris". Space.com. http://www.space.com/news/070221_rocket_explodes.html. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
^ "Recent Debris Events". celestrak.com. http://celestrak.com/events/debris-events.asp. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
^ "Spate of rocket breakups creates new space junk". NewScientist.com. 2007-01-17. http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn10979-spate-of-rocket-breakups-creates-new-space-junk.html. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
^ "Pentagon: Missile Scored Direct Hit on Satellite". 21 February 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19227400.
^ "2 big satellites collide 500 miles over Siberia". yahoo.com. 2009-02-11. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_sc/satellite_collision. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
^ "CO2 prolongs life of space junk". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4486049.stm. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ "Today in Science History". http://www.todayinsci.com/1/1_22.htm. Retrieved 2006-03-08.
^ "Paul Maley's Satellite Page". http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/debris.html. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
^ "Space the final junkyard, documentary film". http://www.eagletv.co.uk/home/space.htm.
^ "PAM-D Debris Falls in Saudi Arabia." The Orbital Debris Quarterly News. Vol. 6, Issue 2. NASA Johnson Space Center. Available online.
^ UN Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines
^ COPUOS Wades into the Next Great Space Debate Theresa Hitchens, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 26 June 2008
^ Orbital Debris - Important Reference Documents
^ Niemanwatchdog.org - Space debris – a growing concern

[edit] External links
This article's external links may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Space debris
NASA J-Track 3-D; an interactive, 3-dimensional plot showing the position of over 900 satellites
NASA Orbital Debris Program Office
ESA Space Debris Office
Space-Track - The Source for Space Surveillance Data
EISACT Space Debris during the international polar year
"What is Orbital Debris?" from the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation
Would a Saturn-like ring system around planet Earth remain stable?
Intro to mathematical modeling of space debris flux
Leonard David, "The Clutter Above," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2005
SOCRATES: A free daily service predicting close encounters on orbit between satellites and debris orbiting Earth
A summary of current space debris by type and orbit
Space Junk Astronomy Cast episode #82, includes full transcript
Paul Maley's Satellite Page - Space debris (with photos)
Space Debris Illustrated: The Problem in Pictures
"Space the final junkyard" documentary film
The Strange Problem of Space Junk - And How It Threatens Our Way of Life by Johann Hari, The Huffington Post, June 11 2009