Los Angeles Times: A successful Chinese missile test last year that destroyed one of China's own aging satellites has substantially added to space debris around Earth, increasing the danger that a chain reaction of colliding space junk could threaten parts of the world's satellite network, scientists said Tuesday.
The threat is that debris could begin slamming into other debris, creating a cascading effect called supercriticality, according to scientists addressing the American Physical Society conference here this week.
"Debris in space is already a problem," said David Wright, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass. "But it's potentially a very big problem."
>Geoffrey Forden, an MIT physicist and expert on the Chinese space program, said the danger from space debris was actually more of a worry than the threat that the Chinese, or some other country, could intentionally cripple American space assets with antisatellite weapons.
According to Wright, the Chinese shoot-down on Jan. 11, 2007, added more than 2 million pieces of debris in low-Earth orbit, where most satellites are located.
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