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submitted 17 hours ago by EatingOnions@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
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[-] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 12 points 9 hours ago

Orbits are elipses, which are loops. So after the explosion gives an object more energy it's in a new orbit right? That orbit has LOOP. Which means it has to come back to a similar point it's at now. Therefore if an object passes through low orbit, no one explosion can make it be in a high orbit. At best it'll be an ellipse with a point in high orbit and a point in low orbit.

Any amount in low orbit means a decaying orbit due to drag with eventual falling out of the sky.

If you get to the high orbit point and you get a SECOND explosion that's perfectly timed you could theoretically enter a new high orbit that's stable over the long term and contribute to Kessler syndrome.

[-] testaccount372920@piefed.zip 3 points 7 hours ago

Blowing up a low orbit satellites can lead to many particles reaching high altitudes, if only temporary as you say, where they can cause cascades. Unstable orbits make the probability of collisions smaller, but they need to shatter only one satellite to end up with a mess in stable orbits.

[-] kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

Space is pretty big. I understand the odds are non zero but it's still really small in this scenario.

[-] testaccount372920@piefed.zip 1 points 34 minutes ago

I think it will depend on how they would disable the satellites. There's a lot of Starlink satellites, it's a lot of particles if they use explosives...

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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