Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderIf a satellite is in a very low orbit then any debris fall to earth quickly. Almost all cubesats have a orbital life of six to five years. The space station, in a normal low earth orbit, would hit the earth in around three years without reboosts. The higher you go, the more absolute volume there is, the slower the satellites there travel and the fewer satellites there are. So that leaves a band of mid-upper LEO satellites to consider…
The US government's High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)(1), a favorite subject of conspiracy theorists, uses a high frequency, high-power transmitter to temporarily excite a small part of the ionosphere. One theoretical use for HAARP is to produce an ion outflow that drags oxygen up to 800km and could be used to enhance the drag on orbiting satellites (and presumably debris as well), de-orbiting them faster.(2) 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_... 2)…
Is it silly to suggest a solution where some futuristic material is discovered, which is harder than all known materials and incredibly inexpensive to produce? It could act as a wedge, oriented perpendicular to Earth, ejecting sufficiently small objects which impact it into back into space
Related recent news, https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1426771798276943872
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 151
- Total comments
- 122
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-04-16 | Kessler syndrome | MichaelAO | 1 | 0 |
| 2016-08-19 | Kessler Syndrome | tosh | 2 | 0 |
| 2017-10-23 | Kessler Syndrome | vermilingua | 4 | 0 |
| 2018-04-06 | Kessler syndrome | duck | 1 | 0 |
| 2018-08-19 | The Kessler Syndrome – Collisional Cascading in Space | Numberwang | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-11-01 | Kessler SyndromeFirst breakout · Best thread | msvan | 63 | 62 |
| 2020-02-13 | Kessler SyndromeLatest 20+ point return | misthop | 57 | 57 |
| 2021-05-31 | Kessler Syndrome | musha68k | 3 | 0 |
| 2021-08-17 | Kessler Syndrome | ColinWright | 3 | 1 |
| 2021-11-16 | Kessler Syndrome | fnord77 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022-03-05 | Kessler Syndrome | simonebrunozzi | 1 | 0 |
| 2024-03-25 | Kessler syndrome – Collisional cascading space debris | punnerud | 2 | 0 |
| 2024-10-05 | Kessler Syndrome | jonbaer | 6 | 2 |
| 2025-01-05 | Kessler Syndrome | hheikinh | 4 | 0 |