NASA Satellite Tracking 3D

If you are a true geek you will appreciate this java app by NASA. Go to this site and click on the +J-Track 3D link. You will be able to track over 900 satellites in orbit.

http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/jtrack/3d/JTrack3D.html

I've played with that before, I love it.  It's good to get the perspective of where satellites really are in relation to the earth, and how many of them are so much farther away than others depending on orbits, really gives a much better sense of scale to it.

I would also love to see something like this with ALL the objects that are tracked in space, all tens of thousands of them, maybe color-coded to indicate size. Here's an article http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0119_060119_space_junk.html talking about some of the problems. It mentions in 2006 there being ~13,000 objects in low-earth orbit greater than 10cm across, that's a LOT of junk. And this is before some more of the recent events, like China blowing up one of their satellites with a missile. Also, if there are 13,000 greater than 10cm across, think how many 1cm objects there must be?

i don't believe those are satellites! they are all UFO's! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

you not going point your laser at them are you...

cool