a question about "space junk"

[schmack]

ive just read some of the posts in the "did moon come from earth" thread and it got me wondering.....<br /><br />If the moon was once a ring of debri around the earth left behind by a large impact, and it condensed into a solid object, could we expect our space junk to eventually do the same thing? ie: become a man made (if a great deal smaller) moon? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4" color="#ff0000"><font size="2">Assumption is the mother of all stuff ups</font> </font></p><p><font size="4" color="#ff0000">Gimme some Schmack Schmack!</font></p> </div>

 

[usn_skwerl]

Educated guess, I'll venture to say no, because there's not enough pieces up there, they're in many, many different scattered orbits, and there's not enough mass of the bits to really form anything significant (500+ ft). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[qso1]

I second that educated guess. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

I'd certainly doubt it would happen in any amount of time because there's not enough mass to attract junk together. Now if there was say a few thousand or maybe even a few hundred thousand times the junk there is now then I might see it could be possible. But We'll never manage that for sure. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Earth's Roche limit goes up pretty high. Nothing below can coalesce. Not too much stuff higher up, and it is pretty 'dispersed'.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[heyscottie]

In addition, since most junk is in LEO, I'd say that chances are that any two globs coming together are more likely to end up in a degraded orbit that burns up in the atmosphere than going on to attract more junk.<br /><br />And as others have said, there's really not enough up there.