Space fireball just misses jetliner - Holy Jesus!

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17836220/?GT1=9145

Was it satellite debris or meteor? Aviation authorities debate incident

SANTIAGO, Chile - Pilots of a Chilean commercial aircraft approaching the Auckland airport in New Zealand said they spotted flaming space debris falling past their jet, the LAN Chile airline reported Wednesday.

The airline said in a brief communique that the pilot, who was not identified, "made visual contact with incandescent fragments several kilometers away" on Monday.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site that pieces of a Russian satellite had narrowly missed the jet. It quoted New Zealand aviation authorities as saying that they had been warned by Russian officials two weeks ago that orbiting debris would be entering the atmosphere, but that the Russians had apparently miscalculated the entry time.

[Joanne98]

1. I least they warned them. It's more than the Chinese would have did...

[karlrschneider]

2. Woah

[MadHound]

3. This is going to be an increasingly common occurrence for two reasons

First, we have tons of space debris in orbit. Enough that putting up rockets these days is getting to be a dicey proposition. The orbits on this debris decays, and down it comes, everything from satelite parts to wrenches lost in orbit. What's gone up is slowly but surely coming down.

The other cause of this is that our particular part of the galaxy is coming back around in it's rotation into a particularly well populated portion of the universe. I've forgotten the name, but we are entering a particular cosmic zone that has lots of dust, rocks and boulders floating around.

Face it, the Earth is and always has been in a giant shooting gallery.

[WiseButAngrySara]

6. That was a comforting post (lol). Something I've always

worried about subconsciously though.

[MadHound]

9. Aww hell, we've all got to go someday!

Frankly I'd rather go out with a big bang than hooked to a respiratory machine:shrug:

The space debris that we've put up is more of a danger to the rocket and shuttle shots that they put up, no atmosphere to burn up that random bolt zipping towards you. And the overwhelming majority of the junk up there is not big enough to cause any damage on earth.

But the great cosmic shooting gallery we're whirling towards, hey, that's going to make life interesting.;)

Frankly I've found it astounding that the Earth hasn't been blasted more than it has, considering all the junk we've got floating in our own solar system.

[Vincardog]

4. question re Orbital Geometry "Would not miscalculating the entry time necessarily change the reentry

place"?

[WiseButAngrySara]

7. Seems so. ....n/t

[IChing]

5. I hope what they really saw was

the republican party falling out the sky in flames

[blogslut]

8. Space Junk

She was walking all alone
Down the street in the alley
Her name was sally
She never saw it
When she was hit by space junk
In new york miami beach
Heavy metal fell in cuba
Angola saudi arabia
On xmas eve said norad
A soviet sputnik hit africa
India venezuela (in texas
Kansas)
Its falling fast peru too
It keeps coming
And now Im mad about space junk
Im all burned out about space junk
Oooh walk & talk about space junk
It smashed my babys head
And now my sallys dead...

--Devo

[SoCalDem]

10. Kim Jong Il testing his mighty space catapult ? n.t