Space Debris Narrowly Misses Airliner

An anonymous reader writes "An airliner jet traveling from Chile to New Zealand early today was in for an interesting ride. Flaming space debris — the remains of a Russian satellite — came hurtling back to Earth not far from a commercial jet on its way to Auckland, New Zealand. Here's further justification for the growing concern of the increasing amounts of space garbage orbiting our planet. From the article: 'The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 ... notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...'"

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU hit spacejunk!

Chili? Russion?

[SouperMike]

An airliner jet traveling from Chili to New Zealand early today were in for an interesting ride. Flaming space debris -- the remains of a Russion satellite -- came hurtling back to Earth not far from commercial jet on their way to Auckland, New Zealand.

Chili?

Russion?

I hate it when my spicy peppers serve as runways.... editors, come on. Are you kidding me?

Damne them!

[Billosaur]

the remains of a Russion satellite --

Damne those Russions!!!

Sorry... couldn't help myself...

I'll get right on it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a major supplier for onboard electronic systems for airliners. I'll remind my boss at the next meeting to bump up the priority on the space junk laser defense system.

Re:Behind?

[antifoidulus]

Dude, just stick your head out and look! It's not that hard.

Re:Chili? Russion?

[iiii]

But was it spicy vegetarian chili, in a commemorative tote bag? Green chili? That gross "wallowing in its own fat" chili they have at Hard Times? I have seen chili fly, usually after it was accompanied by a little too much booze, but I haven't seen airliners spontaneously burst forth from the flying chili. Would be cool tho.

Re:Behind?

[Rob T Firefly]

It's harder when you have to roll down the window with that little crank.

Wormhole Technology!

[Blakey Rat]

after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...

Apparently the Russions developed wormhole technology! An object can be both in front of and behind a jet at the same time! I hope they don't share this technology with the Chili-ans!

Apparently, the Chili-ans have already developed the highly vaunted A-340 rear-view mirror technology. (Seriously, how do you see something 5 miles BEHIND a A-340 from the pilot seat?)

Or maybe this is just the worst summary ever. Although I'm a fan of anybody who can completely offend 160 million people in a single paragraph by misspelling the name of their nations.

Re:Behind?

[Anonymous Coward]

But that would be too dangerous!, you need to keep your eyes on the air in front of you in order to maintain safe distance from the space junk in front!

Re:Chili? Russion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Editors? At slashdot? Come on. Are you kidding me?

Weren't they at Woodstock?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

"Flaming Space Debris", now that's a great name for a rock band.

Dr. Evil's Giant Magnet

[rodney dill]

Fortunately work has already been begun on Dr. Evils's Giant Magnet [yahoo.com]

Re:Chili? Russion?

[voice_of_all_reason]

It's more likely than you think.

OK then, how about this?

[Ericular]

The debris came within .0000000538 AU of the aircraft.

Definitely, we need a Vacuum Cleaner

[VernonNemitz]

Here's one proposal. :) [halfbakery.com]

Re:Weren't they at Woodstock?

[192939495969798999]

They were at Woodstock, but they crashed into Jefferson Airplane and set Jimi Hendrix's guitar on fire... oh wait, they said DON'T take the brown acid! My bad.

Its time for Roger Wilco

[Advocadus Diaboli]

to clean up the mess in our space. :-)

Re:Space debris eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this post up +1 Thinks Inside the Box

Re:Behind?

[fucksl4shd0t]

IN 2010, they intend to ship planes with Klinger as well.

Re:Interesting

[inviolet]

The solution is quite simple actually. Since all that junk is orbiting Earth, the position of any one piece of junk at any time is function of the Earth's gravity (and the piece's velocity), that's how orbits work. Since we can't change the junk's velocity (it doesn't have an engine, or we lost contact with it), all we need to do is increase the Earth's gravity for a couple of days and all the junk will de-orbit by itself. How to increase the Earth's gravity is left as an exercise to the reader.

Not to worry; the Earth gains about one ton per year from infalling cosmic particles.

As well, the Frito-Lay Corporation, in partnership with Dolly-Madison, are committed to the task of increasing the Earth's gravitational pull... one person at a time. I take my hat off to these patriotic, civic-minded businesses for doing their part to solve the desperate space-junk problem!

Modified Pre-Takeoff Safety Instructions

[SeaDour]

"In the event of a collision with a huge, fiery meteor, oxygen masks will drop from the panel above you..."

Re:OK, I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

The first is for intruder detection on the aircraft and for tourist entertainment,

The tourists' entertainment would no doubt be taken to new levels with the detection of an intruder. Nothing like 300 people watching while a masked gang of plane-jackers clamber onboard.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Its even easier than that. Simply change the gravitational constant of the universe. problem solved.

Re:nautical miles, not miles.

[Shadow Wrought]

1 nautical mile == 1.2 standard miles.

1 NM == 1 minute of Latitude

So it also missed him by 5 minutes;-)

That must be quantum debris

[rholland356]

If the debris was both in front of and behind the aircraft at the same time, and pilot Heisenberg was uncertain just where it was in the space/time continuum relative to his point of observation, then perhaps all planes should be fitted out with string theory calculators.

Or their weather report should be updated to include expected orbital re-entries.