A marble-sized space shard packs the punch of a bullet
At orbital speeds, a fragment no larger than a pea hits with the explosive energy of a gunshot, turning space into a high-speed minefield.
When a Starlink satellite recently disintegrated 560 kilometers above Earth, it released a cloud of debris traveling at 7.8 kilometers per second. At this velocity, even a fragment the size of a marble carries the kinetic energy of a .22 caliber bullet. These 'space shards' are not just floating; they are projectiles that can pierce the hull of a space station or shred another satellite on impact.
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