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Trashing the universe
Our final frontier is also our final dumping grounds. There is a scene in Dances with Wolves after Costner's character has arrived at the deserted Dakota base in which he discovers the company's garbage pile. He gives it a disappointing, scrutinizing look as he recognizes it's another harbinger of what is to come for the plains and its people.
Fast forward 150 years to a different kind of frontier: space, in near-Earth orbit. There, we find a similar garbage pile, only this one is traveling at 30,000 miles per hour and threatens all the satellites and telescopes and space stations floating about. No one knows just how many bits of debris are up there, but it doesn't take much for one to wreak havoc—anything larger than 1 cm can pose a serious threat. Even relatively slow-moving 0.3 mm paint flecks have been known to collide with the Space Shuttle's windscreens and cause damage.The origin of space junk came about just as you might assume the first garbage pile did—there's so much empty room up here, what does it matter? How could we ever fill it up?
Very little thought has been given to the issues since Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957. Its own upper stage was discarded into low Earth orbit. While the tiniest fragments are impossible to track, there are people at the European Space Agency and elsewhere cataloging the largest debris. So far, 10,000 objects have been identified. Most of the junk is debris from past collisions in which old craft have broken apart; surprisingly, only 7% of the total comprises anything currently working. Our final frontier is also our final dumping grounds. There is a scene in Dances with Wolves after Costner's character has arriv... more -
Real time satellite tracking
... and satellite and space shuttle news.
Also of interest: world wide sighting opportunities - http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/
Another fun link: Earth and moon viewer -
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Earth/action?opt=-p ... and satellite and space shuttle news. ... more -
Space Debris Piles Up
The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, German only) today published an article on space junk. The shocking image is an eye opener. Humankind continues to repeat the mistake of strewing waste into common spaces (no pun intended) without a thought to the consequences, leaving costs we don't want to pay today for the future generations. The FAS article spurred our curiosity, leading us to find even more spectacular video and potential solutions to the problem (overleaf).
The ESA Space Debris Accumulation video depicts the tragic build up of space debris from 1957 through 2000. According to ESA's resident space debris expert, Walter Flury, the 10,000 pieces of space litter catalogued at the end of 2003 break into the following categories:
41% -- miscellaneous fragments
22% -- old spacecraft
13% -- mission related objects
7% -- operational spacecraft
7% -- rocket bodies
Doing the math, that is 93% pure junk and only 7% useful satellites circling the earth. More disturbing, 50,000 uncatalogued objects larger than 1 cm (the largest size which modern shielding can likely deflect) are estimated to be spinning through space at hypervelocities.
So what, you say? There is a lot of space in Space...the images probably make it appear worse than it really is. Statistically, destructive collisions with operational satellites are predicted on average once every ten years. Nonetheless the risk of damage is real. This hole over 1 cm in diameter penetrates the Hubble high gain antenna dish (the unit continued working in spite of the damage). The windows on the Space Shuttle have been replaced 80 times due to impacts with objects of less than 1 mm. And costly systems to track and issue daily emails warning of potential impacts must be maintained. The future impacts must also be considered. Space debris would be a severe hindrance to space-based solar projects. Last, but not least, there is the risk of space junk raining down on us: space junk hitting an Oklahoma woman is one of Space.com's top ten most memorable pieces of space junk . The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, German only) today published an article on space junk. The shocking image is... more -
Space is full of crap
"The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That's about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse: about 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10)...." "The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a resu... more
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Creepy twisted metal space junk falls from sky
Australian outback farmer James Stirton discovered the ball of twisted metal, which measures 21" and weights 44lb, on his cattle farm in Queensland. A curator from the Brisbane Planetarium has advised Mr Stirton that the object is in fact a helium or nitrogen tank from a rocket used to blast a US solar satellite into space. The tank had been predicted for re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere at 11.47am, Australian time, on November 1, which would have put it near Indonesia. Keep a beady eye on eBay, as that's where the space junk is likely to end up. Would you buy it? How much would you pay? Australian outback farmer James Stirton discovered the ball of twisted metal, which measures 21" and weights 44lb, on his cattle... more
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Space Junk
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Space Junk
