All around the Earth is rubbish

Space junk can be deactivated satellites or debris of rockets. As a satellite slows down, it gradually decreases altitude, encountering more friction with the atmosphere until burning and evaporating. However, many satellites or objects continue to stay in orbit, becoming space junk.

Another cause of space junk is collisions. In 2007, millions of debris were created in orbit around Earth when China launched rockets to destroy one of its satellites, according to the Guardian.

An illustration of the amount of cosmic waste that surrounds the Earth in 2015 was created by Stuart Gray, an aerospace engineer at Strathclyde University. (Image: Stuart Gray / Youtube).

The size of a truck or sometimes as small as a coin, even just a few microns, but space junk is a threat to the global space industry. They fly in orbit at 8km / sec, 10 times faster than the speed of bullets, according to CNN. At the velocity above, a small piece of 1 cm debris on impact has the same explosive power as a grenade.

Space junk is constantly increasing

Currently, the number of cosmic garbage that exists around the Earth is a huge number and they are increasing as the satellites are still being launched steadily.

Recently, billionaire Elon Musk's private airline, SpaceX, has launched an additional 60 new Starlink satellites, bringing the total number of 'Starlink constellations' in orbit to 422.

Starlink is a project built by SpaceX to provide cheap satellite Internet access to everyone. According to TNW, SpaceX is still developing the Starlink satellite cluster and they plan to have as many as 12,000 satellites.

A 'lot' of 60 Startlink satellites is launched by SpaceX in low orbit. (Photo: SpaceX).

Thanks to advances in satellite technology, launching satellites is no longer a problem.

Therefore, not only SpaceX, but also Amazon or the satellite communication company (telesat) of Canada and other countries are also planning for satellite projects of similar scale. This is the reason why the Earth's low orbit is 'more crowded' than ever.

The large number of satellites has made the problem of space junk become even more urgent. Imagine how much garbage in space after deactivating them, not to mention the fragments from collision between satellites and other objects.

Donald Kessler, a leading scientist who studies the object being left on space in NASA, warns that there will be a day when the cosmic rubbish becomes too much, so that every time we launch the satellite, there will be a collision. into an object.

Until then, we will be prisoners on our own planet, and know not to blame anyone but humanity.

Danger from space junk

Amateur astronomers and experts have expressed concern about the cosmic garbage interfering with their work.

Specifically, the satellite's panels are reflective, so they amplify the rays from the Sun hitting the Earth and create stronger, much brighter light beams than ordinary light. As a result, astronomers have difficulty observing outer space objects.

Cosmic waste that exists around the Earth is at alarming levels. (Photo: BBC).

The amount of money invested in optical telescopes has now risen to billions of dollars, and it will certainly be higher in the next decades as the space exploration needs of the space scientists continue to rise. Therefore, the threat of satellite reflexes needs to be addressed quickly.

SpaceX has ensured that the Starlink satellite beam will not make it difficult for astronomers to observe. They also said they have taken steps to minimize the impact of satellites on the telescope.

According to TNW, the 422 satellites in SpaceX's launched Startlink project are still working as expected and affirmed that the company's top is not a 'windy word'.

In addition, satellites, spaceships . operating in low Earth orbit also risk from the cosmic debris. Even satellites in higher orbit can be crashed into space junk while flying.

To keep the satellite flying in the desired orbit, companies must calculate how to balance the two factors are the speed of the satellite and the impact of gravity on it.

The speed at which a satellite needs to move to achieve this balance depends on its altitude to Earth, the closer it is to the Earth, the faster the required speed. For example, at an altitude of 1200 km, the required speed of the satellite is about 28,000 km / h.

However, even if it expires, becomes unusable, it will continue its trajectory at the same speed. Therefore, collision between satellites is completely possible.

Satellites become 'brighter' after they reflect the sunlight. (Photo: CNN).

In 2009, the two satellites collided at 11,700 m / s and melted into tiny debris, continuing to move in their orbit. One is Russia's Kosmos satellite. Kosmos was no longer in use, and was left in the air. In other words, at that time it was a cosmic junk.

Not only that, the debris created by the collision, as mentioned, continues to fly in orbit at very high speed, and this makes the probability of collision between them and space stations or the stars are getting higher and higher.

According to NASA calculations, when the two satellites collide, they create more than 1,000 debris larger than 10 cm in size, which could continue to threaten other satellites for thousands of years.

If you've ever seen the movie Gravity, you will know how thousands of fragments of two satellites are devastating.

In the movie Gravity, two astronauts almost lost their lives when space junk hit their space station. (Screenshots).

The dense existence of space junk also makes rocket launch increasingly difficult. When launched, the missile's speed is fast enough to not collide with the cosmic debris floating in the air. However, the later the amount of space junk will be more, making rocket launch difficult, more expensive.

There is no plan to thoroughly 'clean up the trash' yet

Although satellites and space vehicles are equipped with a layer of 'armor' to prevent cosmic garbage from crashing into them, it only works when the object is less than 1cm, larger pieces of space junk still have. may cause damage. As a result, space agencies such as NASA and ESA are still conducting space debris research projects to observe and develop strategies to control their impact.

However, many people still do not realize that it is the commercialization of space that is constantly increasing that is the main reason for the increasingly congested universe.

Netting equipment, "catching" NASA's space garbage. (Photo: NASA).

Governments and commercial companies in each country must work together to devise effective solutions that can reduce the amount of space junk each time they launch satellites. The goal is to collect as much cosmic waste as possible and prevent them from continuing to appear by removing excess satellites.

For example, the UK successfully launched a garbage cleaning satellite called RemoveDebris in 2018. The device carries a net to scoop up space debris and a harpoon that can shoot at and pull larger objects. .

In addition, scientists are also studying ways to extend the life of satellites to minimize space junk.