What’s Happening?
Since 1950s, we have launched thousands of rockets and sent even more satellites into space and our planets orbit. Many are still there, and we face an ever-increasing risk of collision as we launch more and pollute space. We have been exploring space, studying about other planets and researching for a long time now. It has recently come to our attention that we’ve also been creating a mess and have acted carelessly over treating satellites and rockets that have completed their purpose and are floating aimlessly. Orbiting our planet are thousands of dead satellites, along with bits of debris from all the rockets we’ve launched over the years. This could pose an issue one day.
What are Space Debris?
Space junk, also recognised as space debris are pieces of machinery left by humans in space . It can refer to big objects such as dead satellites that have failed or been left in orbit at the end of their mission or smaller components that may have detached from the rockets at different stages of its mission.
More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris are currently being tracked by the Department of Defense global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) sensors. Some of the Debris may be small but are large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions.both the debris and spacecraft are traveling at extremely high speeds (about 15,700 mph in low Earth orbit), an impact of even a tiny piece of orbital debris with a spacecraft could create big problems.
Are there any Solutions?
The United Nations has asked all companies to remove their satellites from orbit within 25 years after the end of their missions. Looking for a solution has become a very important issue recently. Some of the suggested methods include the removal of dead satellites from orbits by dragging them back into the atmosphere. They will burn up as they fall towards the planets under the influence of their gravitational fields. There are several ways we could do this. One could use a harpoon to grab a satellite or catch it in a huge net, use magnets to grab them, or even fire lasers with high intensities to heat up the satellites, increasing their atmospheric drag so that it falls out of orbit.
Not only have we left a lot of space junk in Earth’s orbit, there are objects elsewhere too, such as on the lunar or martian surfaces. Some satellites were abandoned on the the surfaces and in the orbits of other planets of our solar system. We must limit space pollution during space expeditions. We cant keep polluting every place we can step foot on. We may live on Earth but we exist in a universe.
