Jimmy Buffett Lyric Quotes

space debris and heavenly mysteries

by COURIER ONLINE

After the battle in orbit

phenomena reported spectacular fireballs and space debris:
alarm and mystery in the world

state of emergency in Canada, luminous appearances in Italy, Ky. and Texas

The "strip of fire" appeared in Italy on the evening of February 13 recorded with a camera dall'astrofilo Diego Valeri of Contigliano (Rieti)

ROME - Now space debris ('space debris' in English) are really afraid. In the region of Alberta, Canada, are pulling a sigh of relief for an impact from space averted at the last minute. And in Texas, Kentucky and even in our Italy, standing out here in the sky mysterious "ball of fire", yet it is not known to what extent intertwined with space debris or due to a swarm of meteors.

PANIC IN CANADA - alarm from unit certainly connected with the fall of a man-made object from orbit, the fire in the region of Alberta. E 'success in the early hours of the morning of Friday, February 13, local time, but only in emergency exceeded the details have been revealed. The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) of the United States, an agency that oversees space and keeps an eye on all the bodies orbiting around the Earth, warned the representatives of the Government of Canada: "A Russian space freighter the size of a bus, that was used to transport materials on the International Space Station, is out of control and about to fall on you. Calculations indicate that it may crash into the city of Calgary, around 10 am, but the trajectory is uncertain. We are defining the minute by minute. We will let you know. " The alarm of the civil protection in Canada, both nationally and locally. One wonders whether it is appropriate to warn people and to prepare evacuation plans, at least in the most populous of the city center. While the hectic consultations are underway, it reappeared NORAD: the trajectory of the bullet maxi space has changed, now it seems to focus on Kneehill or Wheatland County, about one hundred kilometers east of Calgary. There, fortunately, the population density is lower, there is less danger of direct impact with people and things. But it faces another concern. The wreck of the Russian carrier which contains radioactive material, dispersing on impact, it could contaminate a large area overhead. Taking other levels of alert to monitor the possible radioactive cloud. "But just as an operator of our staff was to spread the alarm to the public, says Colin Lloyd, Executive Director of Emergency Management Alberta, from the operations center in Ottawa there comes an order against: the wreck Space the atmosphere has rebounded, finishing in the Atlantic. Danger averted. And 'one morning we will not forget easily. "

THE MATCH IN ORBIT - The alarm space of 'Alberta to just three days following a collision in Earth orbit record-breaking occurred on 10 febbraio, a circa 800 km di altezza, fra due satelliti per telecomunicazioni: il russo Kosmos 2251 e l’americano Iridium 33, rispettivamente da 1.000 e 500 kg di peso. Non era mai successo prima d’ora che due grandi satelliti, ciascuno ruotante sulla propria orbita, facessero un involontario urto frontale. (I cinesi, invece, due anni fa, avevano volontariamente effettuato un impatto fra un loro missile balistico e un satellite in disuso). A causa delle alte velocità in gioco (25 mila km all’ora), un crash spaziale genera migliaia di frammenti grandi e piccoli che, sparpagliandosi progressivamente in vari livelli orbitali, si possono trasformare in potenziali proiettili-killer a danno di altri satelliti, della Stazione spaziale permanently inhabited by astronauts at 400 km altitude and, farther down, the Earth itself.

Sightings 'ITALIAN' - For this reason, when the evening of February 13 the amateur Diego Valeri from Contigliano (Rieti), specializing in the observation of meteors, is able to record with his camera for the surveillance of the sky a ball of fire ten times brighter than the Moon (SEE), is not but wonder whether this is a fragment of the orbital collision, rather than the usual cosmic rock came down from heaven. And the question becomes more urgent when similar sightings are made, again on the evening of February 13, even from other locations italiane e, oltre l’Atlantico, a Morehead nel Kentucky (dove l’apparizione è accompagnata da vibrazioni e boati).

FRA UFO E METEORE - Il 15 febbraio, poi, in molte località del Texas, un’altra palla di fuoco è talmente luminosa da rendersi visibile in pieno giorno. Fatti debiti calcoli, gli specialisti del NORAD escludono che le molteplici palle di fuoco possano essere i frammenti del crash spaziale. Un’ ipotesi alternativa è che si tratti di uno sciame di meteore, provenienti chissà da dove, che ha colpito il nostro pianeta, dando luogo a una molteplicità di fenomeni. Ma, mentre gli astronomi sono impegnati nei calcoli, le ipotesi, anche le più spericolate dei soliti ufologi, si affastellano. Il rischio che l’aumento della spazzatura spaziale possa costituire un pericolo sia per la navigazione spaziale e aerea, che per noi inermi abitanti della Terra, è stato intanto ribadito dal direttore dell’United Nation Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOOSA), Mazlan Othman, che ha richiamato al rispetto di una risoluzione già adottata dall’assemblea generale dell’ONU, che esorta a una non proliferazione degli «space debris», allo scopo di preservare l’ambiente spaziale e la sicurezza del pianeta. In pratica, a questo scopo, i vari Paesi del club spaziale, dovrebbero limitare le attività e le manovre potenzialmente pericolose e le agenzie addette al monitoraggio dei corpi Artificial should improve their skills of observation and calculation to prevent accidents with the best control of the now congested traffic orbital.

Franco Foresta Martin
February 17, 2009