Year milestone 1962
Download 2.63 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- KESSLER SYNDROME
MESSENGERUnderstanding Mercury, the smallest, densest, and least-explored of the terrestrial planets The spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study Mercury’s chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide compelling support for the long-held hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters. The instruments carried by MESSENGER were used on a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to Mercury using minimal fuel. During its first flyby of Mercury in January 2008, MESSENGER became the second mission after Mariner 10’s 1975 flyby to reach Mercury. The MESSENGER mission was designed to study the characteristics and environment of Mercury from orbit. Specifically, the scientific objectives of the mission were: To characterize the chemical composition of Mercury’s surface. To study the planet’s geologic history. To elucidate the nature of the global magnetic field (magnetosphere). To determine the size and state of the core. To determine the volatile inventory at the poles. To study the nature of Mercury’s exosphere. KESSLER SYNDROMEThe Kessler Syndrome is a theory proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, used to describe a self-sustaining cascading collision of space debris in LEO. It’s the idea that two colliding objects in space generate more debris that then collides with other objects, creating even more shrapnel and litter until the entirety of LEO is an impassable array of super-swift stuff. At that point, any entering satellite would face unprecedented risks of headfirst bombardment Matter in orbit travels at ridiculously high speeds, say 22,000km/h, just as an example. If this matter were to travel in the same plane and direction indefinitely, it would be impossible for any matter to collide, like cars going straight on a highway at the same speed, never endeavoring to switch lanes or get off on an exit. Download 2.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
|