New GEO Debris Cloud Poses Risk to Costly Satellites
TL;DR Summary
Warwick researchers used a novel image‑processing approach to reanalyze data from the Isaac Newton Telescope and found 25 debris tracks in geostationary orbit (about 36,000 km up), 80% of which were previously unknown. The tiny fragments could linger indefinitely in GEO due to the near‑vacuum, creating a potentially dangerous debris cloud that threatens expensive satellites and underscores the need for debris surveys before GEO launches, with the study published in the Journal of Astronautical Sciences.
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