There is a lot of junk in space. And by that, I mean A LOT. The larger objects, which account to around 23.000 are rocket debris and dead satellites. Many of them, however, are hundreds of thousands of smaller bits that float around Earth crazy fast at 28.000 km/h. It's practically a beehive around Earth. This situation is dangerous for the satellites in orbit and launching rockets. Sure, radars help space agencies controlling whether any possible collision is imminent. Yet, a radar-"invisible" piece of metal, travelling at 40.000 km/h, colliding with a satellite or even a rocket, could easily be the end of all. And imagine if that happens to the ISS... Not cool.
National space agencies around the world (mainly USA and Japan) try to come up with ways to mitigate the increasing number of space junk, as the situation around Earth is only getting worse, but with very little success. We reached a point where the more satellites are sent to space, the higher the risk of them colliding with one another and creating smaller and smaller pieces, harder for radars to detect but as harmful as the larger ones, and therefore the thicker the "space junk ring" becomes. We may be putting too much debris in space that we will close ourselves off space travel because of the danger it would take to get through our own garbage heap.
That's all.
National space agencies around the world (mainly USA and Japan) try to come up with ways to mitigate the increasing number of space junk, as the situation around Earth is only getting worse, but with very little success. We reached a point where the more satellites are sent to space, the higher the risk of them colliding with one another and creating smaller and smaller pieces, harder for radars to detect but as harmful as the larger ones, and therefore the thicker the "space junk ring" becomes. We may be putting too much debris in space that we will close ourselves off space travel because of the danger it would take to get through our own garbage heap.
That's all.
Comments
Post a Comment