Faint orbital debris that threatens satellites not being monitored closely enough, warn astronomers

Phys.org  September 24, 2020
Despite previous optical surveys probing to around 10–20 cm in size, regular monitoring of faint sources at GEO is challenging, thus our knowledge remains sparse. Researchers in the UK present photometric results from a survey of the GEO region carried out in Canary Islands. They uncovered 129 orbital tracks with GEO-like motion across the eight nights of dark-grey time comprising the survey. The faint end of the brightness distribution continues to rise until the sensitivity limit of the sensor is reached, suggesting that the modal brightness could be even fainter. They uncover several faint, uncatalogued objects that show photometric signatures of rapid tumbling, many of which straddle the limiting magnitude of our survey over the course of a single exposure, posing a complex issue when estimating object size. This work presents the first instalment of DebrisWatch, a UK govt program, investigating the faint population of GEO debris…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE

Examples of light curves extracted from the survey images for faint debris tracks. Credit: Blake et al., ASR, 2020

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