Every single satellite orbiting Earth, in a single image

BGR via yahoo ^ | March 6, 2014 | Zach Epstein

[bgill]

Cell phones and in-dash navigation systems rely on GPS satellites, Dish and DirecTV obviously use satellite feeds, and satellite communications systems offered by the likes of Inmarsat and Iridium continue to proliferate across various industries. Just how crowded is it getting up there above the Earth’s atmosphere?

[bgill]

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Holy %#*& Batman!

[massgopguy]

There goes the Launch Window.

[Fledermaus]

You called?

[cuban leaf]

It's not as bad as it looks. The satellites, at this perspective, would be less than pin pricks on this picture. They are shown at thousands of times their actual size so you can see where they are.

[cuban leaf]

[PoloSec]

Satellite Hotel...No Vacancies!

[BitWielder1]

That visible ring must be the geostationary orbit.

[cuban leaf]

Yep.

[discostu]

And that’s just the satellites, then there’s all the junk that’s come off of satellites and ships.

[InterceptPoint]

That visible ring must be the geostationary orbit.
++++++++
Indeed it is. What this tells us is that if we had good enough telescopes we could tell if the aliens have DirecTV. ;)

[PGR88]

What are the odds of two colliding?

Satellites are not that big, but the area they exist in is inconcievably huge.

[DannyTN]

That doesn't even have the biggest satellite...

[plsvn]

What are the odds of two colliding?

It's happened once so far between a Russian satellite and an Iridium communication satellite.

[Gay State Conservative]

Of course some of ours (western nations) are spy satellites...that goes without saying.But most are surely telephone,TV,radio,internet,etc units.OTOH you can be sure that 99% of China’s (and the USSR’s) satellites are for spying and jamming purposes.

[Migraine]

Satellite Hotel...No Vacancies!

Satellite Used Cars: Take One for a Spin!

[pgyanke]

Wall-E Leaves Earth

[wonkowasright]

This could all be cleaned up with the launch of a giant magnet....

[bgill]

I’m more worried about one crashing onto my head.

[dr_lew]

Satellites are not that big, but the area they exist in is inconcievably huge.

I don't think that word means what you think it means :-)

They always say that when two galaxies collide, the odds of even one collision between stars is near zero ...

Check:

Consider a slab of stars 10000 lys thick, each star with a diameter of 1000000 km = 10^9 m, and a separation of 10 ly or ~10^17 m.

So for each ly of thickness there's about ( 10^9/10^17)^2 = (10^-6)^2 or 10^-12 chance of a given star traversing this slab hitting a star in the slab. Well, times 10^5 lys gives 10^-7 chance for each star, so with billions of stars making the traverse expect hundreds of collisions! Check fails!

That's inconceivable!