I recently read about the Kessler Syndrome and am thinking about writing a story set in a world suffering from it. In the interest of realism, I am curious about the secondary effects which would be produced by this kind of scenario.
- About what distance would the debris cloud reside? How deep would it be?
- Would the debris cloud destroy satellites? Some satellites? All satellites? Could you build a satellite which would survive it?
- What would be the effects on the ground? Would there be frequent meteor showers? Would the meteor showers cause damage? Would the sun or stars be obscured?
- How long would the cloud last? How could it be manually eliminated?
I understand that there are a huge number of variables here, and that many of the answers depend upon how the syndrome got its start. I'm just curious about the best-case and worst-case scenarios. For the best-case scenario, imagine that the International Space Station explodes. For worst-case, imagine that 433 Eros is in geosynchronous orbit and explodes.
I also understand that this is a subjective question. I am trying to make it a good subjective question.
