Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL in the early 1960s, the United States shot 480 000 000 copper needles into space (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 5 days ago by Quilotoa@lemmy.ca to c/til@lemmy.ca

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[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 44 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Although the dispersed needles in the second experiment removed themselves from orbit within a few years, some of the dipoles that had not deployed correctly remained in clumps, contributing a small amount of the orbital debris tracked by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office. Their numbers have been diminishing over time as they occasionally re-enter. As of April 2023, 44 clumps of needles larger than 10 cm were still known to be in orbit.

They're still up there. If they somehow survived re-entry, they could hit you. You could be innocently looking up and all of a sudden - copper needle from space, right in the eye.

[–] TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id 26 points 5 days ago (1 children)

! My one weakness.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

I was two days away from retirement!

[–] TheDoctorDonna@piefed.ca 13 points 5 days ago

Better than a toilet seat.

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don’t know if they could descend from MEO into the atmosphere and not eventually vaporize from heat ablation before slowing enough to re-enter. Copper ain’t gonna withstand those temps.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 9 points 5 days ago

Even if they did, the chance of one of them landing on someone's eye is so astronomically low as to be functionally 0% - but that's not the point! The point is to jokingly play into someone's unreasonable fear of orbital copper needles! Work with me here.