Meteor Storm to Threaten Satellites
A severe meteor storm expected to peak in November will bombard the world?s satellites with an unusually dense amount of space dust, creating the greatest threat of a meteor impact since 1966, according to NASA scientists.
The Leonid meteor shower occurs annually but this year it is expected to be a storm unlike anything seen in recent decades. The last time the Leonids produced what astronomers call a storm, only a handful of satellites orbited the Earth, so the threat was minimal.
Now there are hundreds of satellites that will be at risk. They provide services ranging from pagers and television to weather forecasts and monitoring for potential nuclear blasts from other nations.
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