Satellites steer clear of meteor damage

Fears of cosmic catastrophe were avoided yesterday as satellite operators took direct action to avoid their celestial hardware being damaged in the Leonid meteor storm.

Space agencies took no chances as thousands of tiny particles of debris from the Tempel-Tuttle comet rained into the earth's atmosphere at 71km per second.

A spokeswoman for the UK Radio Communications Agency said spacecraft had been advised to take "damage limitation measures", which involved "turning so the most vulnerable systems were not in direct line of fire, switching off high voltage systems and keeping ground controllers on alert".

The Hubble space telescope was also turned to face away from any possible danger, while the European ER1 and ER2 observatory satellites were powered down to sleep mode.

So far, no damage has yet been reported.