Most folks probably don’t think of satellites as capable of sinking, but according to the European Space Agency they can and do.
Space news site Space. com reported Thursday that ESA scientists had to raise the Swarm constellation satellites, which measure Earth’s magnetic field, because they were sinking in chaotic space weather.
“In the last five, six years, the satellites were sinking about two and a half kilometers [1.5 miles] a year,” Swarm mission managerAnja Stromme, ESA’s told Space.com. “But since December last year, they have been virtually diving. The sink rate between December and April has been 20 kilometers [12 miles] per year.”
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