This Week In Space: When Space Junk Collides

Space is full of wonders, but the space around our planet is also increasingly filled with … junk. Pieces of defunct satellites and spacecraft litter the earth’s orbit and the more stuff that goes up into space, the more celestial litter we leave behind. And it’s not just annoying that humans can’t go anywhere without leaving garbage, this stuff is hazardous to the other stuff in space. And if two pieces of space junk collide? That’s downright dangerous.

The two defunct objects are OPS 6182, a defunct weather satellite, and a rocket body known as SL-8 R/B. These two have a 20% chance of colliding over the arctic. The two objects would collide at 32,679 mph, and they would produce 2.1 tons of debris in four million fragments. That’s scary!

This is from the EU agency that monitors this sort of stuff.

But what’s the big deal, you may ask. Well, space junk is dangerous because it could hit other stuff in space and on earth. Most junk will burn up in the atmosphere, which is good, but even tiny fragments like the ones that could be created if those two objects collide could have serious consequences if they hit, say, the international space station. Or worse, a person in a spacesuit on a spacewalk.

In a report from NASA released just this year, the agency explained how many pieces of space junk are out there that could cause a disaster. Of the millions of fragments of space debris, there are at least 26,000 that are the size of softballs. And when something the size of a softball is traveling at 17,500 mph, it could obliterate a satellite on impact. According to NPR, “More than 500,000 pieces are a ‘mission-ending threat’ because of their ability to impact protective systems, fuel tanks, and spacecraft cabins.”

And there’s more! There are more than 100 million pieces of space junk, some as small as a grain of salt which could puncture a space suit like a bullet, “amplifying the risk of catastrophic collisions to spacecraft and crew.” But there are efforts going on to clean the skies up. New missions are being sent that would retrieve decommissioned satellites … but they’re years from being effective.

Space junk is a real and growing problem that we’ll need to address sooner rather than later. I guess it proved that when you shoot for the moon, sometimes your junk ends up among the stars.

(via Science Alert News, image: Pexels)

Here are a few other Space news items we saw this week:

• Let’s learn about Beta Centauri. (via EarthSky.Org)
• There’s a new moon is feisty Aries coming up, what does it mean for you? (via Women’s Health)
• Selfie!
  See more

  Two bots, one selfie. Greetings from Jezero Crater, where I’ve taken my first selfie of the mission. I’m also watching the #MarsHelicopter Ingenuity as it gets ready for its first flight in a few days. Daring mighty things indeed.

  Images: https://t.co/owLX2LaK52 pic.twitter.com/rTxDNK69rs

  — NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) April 7, 2021

See you in orbit!

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Jessica Mason

Jessica Mason (she/her) is a writer based in Portland, Oregon with a focus on fandom, queer representation, and amazing women in film and television. She's a trained lawyer and opera singer as well as a mom and author.

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