http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090213/ap_on_sc/eu_satellite_collision

This seems to be more serious than appeared when first reported = tens of thousands of particles of the two satellites are now floating about in some of the most-used space around our planet.

There is no civil system for tracking satellites and warning about potential collisions. There is an increasing amount of traffic of all kinds and more and more junk floating about.

The collision took place over Siberia.

Quote :

A privately owned U.S. communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite in the first such collision in space, a U.S. military spokesman said on Wednesday.
The collision, which took place on Tuesday in low-earth orbit, involved a spacecraft of privately owned Iridium Satellite LLC and a "non-operational" Russian communications satellite, said Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Les Kodlick of the U.S. Strategic Command.

"We believe it's the first time that two satellites have collided in orbit," he said.

The command's Joint Space Operations Center was tracking 500 to 600 new bits of debris, some as small as 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) across, in addition to the 18,000 or so other man-made objects it has catalogued in space, Kodlick said.

The collision occurred at roughly 780 kilometers (485 miles), an altitude used by satellites that monitor weather and carry telephone communications among other things, he said.

"It's a very important orbit for a lot of satellites," he said.

The International Space Station flies at a lower altitude and is the command's No. 1 priority in attempting to prevent collisions, Kodlick said.

More in the VIDEO: U.S. and Russian satellites collide

Space is large, very large. What are the chances of two satellites colliding? About the same as two submarines playing 'bumps a daisy' in mid Atlantic. There seems to be a lot of this lately?

Space is large but I'd say most satellites follow a similar path so it is not quite as simple as space being very large. I just searched Google to try and see how many there are up there, a report in 1997 seemed to suggest there are 8,600 satellites in orbit and 16,000 in a state of decay. That was 12 years ago, I would imagine you can multiply that by alot for today.

But johnfás it is a 3 dimensional equation. The possibility is incredibly small.

Squire wrote:

Space is large, very large. What are the chances of two satellites colliding? About the same as two submarines playing 'bumps a daisy' in mid Atlantic. There seems to be a lot of this lately?

Agreed. A large lump of something said to be a meteor fell in Texas last week.

Messing of some kind going on.

This is just a space version of the Birthday Paradox.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/World/eyauaumhauau/

Another one bites the dust.