Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo
Space should not be a garbage dump. Nevertheless, we have treated the sky as a wrecker’s yard for more than half a century, and the amount of space junk orbiting Earth has skyrocketed in recent years. Now filled with the decaying hulks of defunct rockets and satellites, our polluted orbital environment is becoming more crowded by the day, threatening the growing space economy.
It’s time for nations—and the billionaires commoditizing space—to clean up Earth’s near orbit. The U.S. Air Force tracks more than 25,000 pieces of space junk larger than 10 centimeters—about the size of a bagel— weighing together some 9,000 metric tons. This dangerous trash zips around Earth at speeds of roughly 10 kilometers per second, or more than 22,000 miles per hour.
Collisions between millimeter-scale objects too small to track and working satellites are now routine, as are near-miss disasters. One example is a NASA research satellite that almost hit a defunct Russian satellite in February. Orbital debris collisions cost satellite operators an estimated $86 million to $103 million in losses a year, a figure that will grow as each operator and each collision generates more debris….Story continues…
By: The Editors
Source: There Is Too Much Trash in Space | Scientific American
.
Read more:
Chair workouts plan according to your age
Online Marketing Scoops 
Leave a Reply