A secret Russian satellite broke apart in early January, leaving a cloud of debris that will remain in Earth's orbit for some time to come.. According to the US Space Forces, the Cosmos-2499 satellite disintegrated on the night of January 3, Space reports.. com.

The event generated at least 85 traceable debris.. This cloud of space debris is located at an altitude of about 1169 kilometers from Earth. This is so high that it will take about 100 years for them to enter the planet's atmosphere..

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Causes of the satellite crash are not known.. However, this is not the only mystery that accompanies the satellite.. According to Anatoly Zak from RussianSpaceWeb. com, the satellite was launched into Earth orbit in May 2014 on a Russian Rokot rocket along with three Rodnik military communications satellites..

At the same time, initially the device was not included in the launch manifest. US tracking systems originally cataloged it as a wreck called Object E.. But then the "

“By the end of October [2014], the US officially reclassified Object E as a “payload” instead of a “fragment” and finally cataloged it as “Cosmos 2499”. The US military rechecked the orbital parameters of the mysterious satellite three or four times a day.! "

An analysis of the orbital movement showed that Kosmos approached the Briz-M at a distance of 0.76 kilometers on November 9, 2014. Then the device moved away, but later approached the upper stage even closer, at a distance of 0.53 kilometers.

This has led to speculation that Cosmos-2499 and the similar Cosmos-2491, which were launched into low-Earth orbit in December 2013, are testing technology that allows spacecraft to stalk and possibly even disable other.

The then head of Roskosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, gave a press conference at which he denied these rumors.. According to him, the satellites were developed in cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences and were used for peaceful purposes, including for unidentified scientific research by educational institutions.. Ostapenko said that “the satellites fulfilled their mission,” but did not say what it consisted of..

Despite these assurances, Cosmos remained active for several more years.. In particular, he made maneuvers in 2017. Now the days of the satellite with a length of about 0.3 meters are numbered.

Recall that recently two pieces of space debris almost collided in orbit, which could lead to the formation of thousands of new fragments.. "