Dodging Junk in Space
Question: How much junk is in the Earth’s trunk — er, orbit?
Answer: A lot. And a lot more since China knocked down an aging weather satellite last month.
Evidence: Check out this graphic from the New York Times, which shows the thousands of pieces of small debris that are now in orbit.
The accompanying article explains:
For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens….
Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests.
Now, experts say, China’s test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars’ worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity’s reach for the stars.
Indeed, the destruction of the satellite by China forced the International Space Station to move (see the video above) to avoid debris from the destroyed satellite, which the U.S. military is tracking.
