I dunno, I'm no physicist (in fact I can hardly spell it), but I always understood that it was a very delicate manoeuver to get any item to orbit the earth for any length of time. This was achieved with a very precise combination of mass, velocity, angle of flight and altitude, and probably many other considerations that I'm not even aware of. If any one of these was incorrect, the "would be satellite" would either gradually lose altitude and burn up in the atmosphere or it would zoom off into interstellar space. Even the most precisely positioned satellites eventually either fall to earth or escape the gravitational pull and "run away from home".
Of the thousands of pieces of debris generated from this collision, how many would actually achieve the correct combination of the above factors to remain in orbit for any appreciable length of time? I do know that for example there is an over glove orbiting up there somewhere which was allegedly lost on one of the spacewalks years ago.
My thoughts were that with the violence of this collision, the pieces would have been ejected with a high velocity relative to that needed to remain in orbit, and therefore they would not remain as a hazard for any appreciable amount of time
Then again I may well have it all stuffed up, believe it or not, I was actually wrong once before
. Does anyone know the answer?