the buzz log
The U.S. military obliterated a bus-size satellite over the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday. The following day, the Buzz Log was still feeling the reverberations.
The event played out like "High Noon" in space, and the searches reflected it. Queries like "spy satellite shoot down" (+497%), "shooting down satellite" (+295%), and "satellite shot down" (+362%) flashed upwards.
The object hurtling toward Earth wasn't coming by its lonesome, either. According to officials, it carried the toxic fuel Hydrazine. Searchers didn't let the detail slip by. Lookups for "hydrazine fuel" (+501%) and "hydrazine" (+428%) surged. The question "what is hydrazine" made what must be a Buzz Log debut.
Finally, one errant space object sparked thoughts of others. Demand for "spy satellites"—note the plural—rose 730%. The smashed-up intelligence-gathering tool was American-made, but queries asking "what countries have spy satellites" rode to the top of the week's "spy" searches.
the buzz log
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what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.