If there are many satellites orbiting earth, how do space launches not bump into any of them?

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If there are many satellites orbiting earth, how do space launches not bump into any of them?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Space is incredibly vast. Everything is very far apart. As an example, consider the rings of saturn or our asteroid field. You probably believe based on tv shows that these are huge rocks all tumbling together that would have to be dodged and avoided. The reality is however that the objects are going to be 600 miles apart from each other. When objects collide in space they lose energy and fall. This means that every object we see has to be in a stable orbit far enough apart from other objects where they no longer collide. The objects orbiting the earth appear to be stable but they all lose energy over time (from dust collisions) and will eventually enter the atmosphere and burn up.

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