n average $10,000 per pound ($22,000 per kilogram).
Space satellites, stray pieces from the early days of the space shuttle, and even future space missions to explore asteroids threaten to clutter the skies. Satellite-satellite collisions generate space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years.
What goes up doesn’t necessarily come down–not from space. Would you believe that there’s actually a “junkyard” of thousands of pieces of scrap floating around? So much so that new launchings and satellite placement have to take into account what’s in the vicinity–it’s an expensive traffic jam. Mission planners have to calculate orbits around the poles and the equator carefully, as the smallest change, for example a piece of space debris striking a satellite can alter the orbit or even collide and destroy it.
We are far from the point where the ‘traffic’ in space resembles the traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia, but it is a concern now and into the future. It’s hard enough to believe we can pollute the huge amounts of water in the oceans worldwide. Now we have to get our minds around the pollution of the infinitely more vastness of space around the earth.
We are, incidentally, also polluting the skies with cell phone signals that block part of the spectrum of radio wavelengths astronomers, such as the scientists at the Aricebo Observatory, use to look at the cosmos. We look at our cell phones and wonder what we are doing to the universe. What other clutter are we responsible for, and what are we losing?
Scientific estimates indicate there are more than 670,000 debris 1–10 cm, and around 29
,000 larger pieces of trackable space debris that can reach 8 ton defunct satellites the size of a bus, speeding around Earth in various orbits.
These are mainly in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), between altitudes of 160 and 2000 km, where all manned space flights (except trips to the moon) have taken place. As well as the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), at 36,000 km where weather and communication satellites hover above one spot in synchronized rotation with the earth transmitting information from their focal area.
The image reveals the entry hole created on Space Shuttle Endeavour’s radiator panel by the impact of unknown space debris.
But the real collision risk comes from an estimated untrackable 170 million debris smaller than 1 cm (0.4 in). This flying flotsam is highly dangerous, not only because of its destructive nature but, as Galacti points out, it may have already reached ‘critical density.’
This is a point at which more space debris is being created by launchings and collisions–than is being removed by natural forces like falling out of orbit and being burnt up in the atmosphere. which some experts believe. This starts a chain reaction of pulverizing more and more space debris.
Small objects such as flecks of paint don’t leave a large impact but, like a piece of gravel cracking your windshield as you drive, they deteriorate highly polished lenses and solar panels. Another factor is speed, this space debris is traveling at Mach 9, nine times the speed of sound and can make shreds out of a satellite. Hypervelocity impacts cause metals to act like fluids and at extreme hypervelocity both impactor and target are vaporized.
We’ve harnessed the confines of space for man’s necessities, to communicate more and faster, to get better forecasts, to scrutinize the globe for natural resources–and in so doing to what extent are we emptying a glass that was full?
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.5 of Audit of the Universe
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