TWO SATELLITES CRASHED IN SPACE YESTERDAY (Wednesday) marking the first time ever that orbiting spacecraft have collided. Both of them were destroyed leaving two huge clouds of space debris about 500 miles over Siberia.
One of them was a communications satellite privately owned by the American firm Iridium Satellite LLC. It was operational at the time. The other was a Russian spy satellite launched in 1993, weighing more than a ton and including an onboard nuclear reactor. While a collision could release nuclear residue, experts have argued for years that the chance of radioactive debris surviving a fall through the atmosphere is very small.
Each satellite was traveling at 17,500 mph and they collided at a right angle, resulting in a catastrophic destruction.
More than 220 active commercial satellites now orbit the globe, in addition to hundreds of military and scientific satellites.
Russia Today News Service has this good video report (in English language) that has graphics showing what the satellites looked like plus some more information about the wreck:
