NASA satellite’s space junk encounter was even closer than thought

Humanity dodged an orbital bullet recently by an even slimmer margin than we thought. In the wee hours of Feb. 28, the dead Russian spy satellite Cosmos 2221 and NASA’s TIMED craft, which has been studying Earth’s atmosphere since 2001, made an uncomfortably close pass in orbit, zooming within a mere 65 feet (20 meters) of each other. That was the initial estimate, anyway. Further study has shown that the shave was actually even closer, according to NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “We recently learned through analysis that the pass ended up being less than 10 meters [33 feet] apart…