Ablation cascade
An Ablation cascade is a term used for a possible catastrophic orbital event. The event could be triggered by the explosive destruction of a satellite. The resulting debris with its wide variety of velocities would impact up other satellite. If enough of these exploded this would result on an exponential increase in the amount of debris, until no satellite where left.
The resulting high energy debris field would possibly render access to space impossible. As the number of a satellite and amount of debris in orbit continues to increase the probability of such an event increases.
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Categories: Astronomy stubs | Space