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Space seems pretty empty. But humanity hasn’t taken only memories on our visits. We’ve left a lot of junk up there. Aditi R. and Ellie H. teach us about space junk and why it is important to keep space clean.
By Aditi R. and Ellie H.
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and stared in awe at all the beautiful stars and planets? Likely, you have never thought about how much trash ends up in space. According to NASA, there are around 27,000 pieces of trash in space. They also estimate that there are about 500,000 pieces of small space junk larger than one centimeter and 100,000,000 pieces of trash bigger than one millimeter. Even though there are only tiny pieces of trash, it can still make a big difference.
One of the very important reasons that we need to keep space clean is that even small pieces of debris can be a very big threat to astronauts and satellites surrounding them. These small pieces of debris can punch holes in satellites while bigger pieces can destroy them entirely. According to Newsela, space debris can move at more than ten times the speed of a bullet. This greatly increases the risk for astronauts when they are in space.
Space debris has become a big problem in recent years due to an increase in sending items into space. Nowadays, it costs relatively less money than it use to, and even some regular people, not trained astronauts, have been in space. Another reason why there is more space debris is because scientists usually leave robots and machines in space long after they're done with testing, according to Newsela. This is probably because it costs more money than they have to spend to return it to earth. NASA is not yet planning to get rid of the trash that's already there; however, they are planning to help with reducing future trash space.
Some think we should push trash into a higher orbit but others think we should use nets, harpoons and even magnets to catch trash. Some people doing an experiment called removeDEBRIS at the University of Surrey in England. It is designed to grab pieces of trash and burn them by using the earth's atmosphere.
In conclusion, there are lots of ways we can help if we keep researching. Maybe one day you will look up at the sky and know that there is no trash.
Source: MIT News Office
Aerospace engineers from MIT have developed a laser sensing technique that can decipher not only where but what kind of space junk may be passing overhead.
How much space debris is out there?
More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris, or “space junk,” are tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) sensors. Much more debris -- too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions -- exists in the near-Earth space environment. Since both the debris and spacecraft are traveling at extremely high speeds (approximately 15,700 mph in low Earth orbit), an impact of even a tiny piece of orbital debris with a spacecraft could create big problems.
Source: NASA
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