<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>after looking into this, it is clear that there are HUNDREDS of objects floating in space that regularly come within site of one another. Actually it is thousands. This is totally amazing. All of the Cosmos vehicles are nuclear, and they come up in these searches regularly. All sorts of things, most of which cannot move on their own. If a nuclear satellite strikes another object in space, would we ever really know? <br /> Posted by job1207</DIV></p><p>Minor correction: the Cosmos designator is actually pretty generic. There are military recon satellites, civilian research satellites, and even a lot of failed deep space probes which carry the name. In general, the name would be put onto any Earth-orbiting science spacecraft, and any spacecraft where the Russians didn't want to say what it really was. That includes spysats, but it also includes a whole fleet of interplanetary spacecraft which failed to leave Earth orbit.</p><p>If a nulcear satellite strikes another object, would we know? Depends mostly on the size of the impactor. All objects above a certain size are tracked by radar, and this would make it possible to tell when an impact occured, as long as it wasn't something like a paint chip punching through some foil or something similarly minor. Of course, one must also remember that we can't be 100% sure US Space Command actually knows which objects are nuclear and which are not . . . . </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>