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Emperor penguin colonies can show up in satellite images ... | funfact.wiki | funfact.wiki
Emperor penguin colonies can show up in satellite images as poop stains before the birds are visible. Brown guano patches on Antarctic ice are detectable by 10 m-resolution Sentinel-2 imagery, letting researchers find new colonies from space.
  • Emperor penguin
  • Guano
  • Satellite
  • Antarctica
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Guano, formed from accumulated seabird droppings, was so valuable as fertilizer and gunpowder material that it sparked wars. In 1856, the USA passed the Guano Islands Act, allowing it to claim any uninhabited island with guano deposits—and the law remains in effect today.
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1950s engineer Jerry Pournelle proposed dropping tungsten rods from satellites. Project Thor ("Rods from God") drops 6.1 m × 30 cm rods at Mach 10 with ~11.5 tonnes of TNT energy. Not a nuke, so no fallout — and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty's ban on "WMDs in orbit" doesn't apply.
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The Kessler syndrome is a scenario where space debris hits a satellite, creating fragments that destroy more satellites in a chain reaction until orbit is choked with junk. Losing GPS and communications could set civilization back to 1970.
  • Space debris
  • Satellite
  • Space
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