Science in Seconds - Space Junk

Science in Seconds Know Everything RANTS - Space Junk Rheanna Sand: I love space technology. But even kids know to clean up their toys, when they're done playing. So why can't space agencies show the same courtesy? In the past 50 years engineers have had their fun, and in doing so clogged our orbits with tens of millions of pieces of man-made debris. This amount of space junk could literally ruin it for everyone. Thankfully, there are great efforts to minimize harm. Most space junk is carefully tracked. Metal foils defuse the impact of small pieces on spacecraft, and dead equipment is guided into so called graveyards orbits, dedicated only to junk. But there is always the risk of a collision in the graveyard orbit, causing more debris to fly off into working orbits where they can damage satellites or worse, manned spacecraft. At those speeds, even a paint chip can be deadly. Or each collision could lead to more and more collisions, causing the domino effect known as Kessler syndrome. He predicted that an exponential increase in debris would make space exploration unfeasible for generations. We do have a few options: a laser broom could be installed on the space station to sweep debris away; or better yet, satellites can be programmed to burn up in the atmosphere at the end of their life. But what you don't want to do is, oh, I don't know, send a ground missile up and blowing old satellites to smithereens. Yeah. I'm looking at you China. I haven't forgotten 2005. Or let two satellites collide. Russia and US, nice work. Way to get us one step closer to Kessler's future fun task. Courtesy of Science in Seconds – All rights reserved Only for educational/non-profit purposes. (Translators are invited to put their name here)