Post by Xxsuperheroxx on May 1, 2023 8:26:59 GMT -6
The launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957 created the first piece of humanmade orbital debris and revealed the need to track these objects in space. In a short span of 66 years There is estimated to be over 128 million pieces of space junk orbiting the earth. This number only accounts for the space debris smaller than one centimeter across there is about 900,000 additional pieces that are from 1 to 10 centimeters across and the current count for large debris of 10 centimeters and larger is around 34,000.
This space debris is made up of things like used up rocket stages loose fragments from explosions and collisions, launch canisters dust, paint flakes some of which are orbiting the planet at speeds over 15,000 miles in hour (Mach 19.5). NASA tracks the larger pieces of space junk to make sure that they do not collide with new rockets we launch from Earth and the satellites orbiting the earth as well as the International Space Station.
We have left over 400,000 pounds of trash on the moon. We have 16,000 pounds on Mars, we have trash on Venus, Mercury, Titan. Galileo's death occurred by design when it was sent on a collision course with Jupiter on Sept. 21, 2003 and "burned up" in Jupiter's dense atmosphere. We now have artificial objects (space debris) leaving the Solar System, space probes and the upper stages of their launch vehicles, all launched by NASA. Three of the probes, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons are still functioning and are regularly contacted by radio communication, while Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 are now derelict. In addition to these "spacecraft", some upper stages and de-spin weights are leaving the Solar System, assuming they continue on their trajectories. Interstellar space junk in the short span of 66 years we have become interplanetary and interstellar polluters.
The Kessler Syndrome is named after former NASA scientist Donald Kessler, who laid out the basic idea in a seminal 1978 paper.
The Kessler Syndrome describes, and warns of, a cascade of orbital debris that could potentially hinder humanity's space ambitions and activities down the road. The original paper predicted that satellite collisions would become a source of space junk by the year 2000, if not sooner, unless humanity changed how it lofted payloads to orbit.
This is all old data we are now launching more junk each day in to space and we have debris falling to earth at an alarming rate. We will soon be crashing the International Space Station in to the Earths space junkyard called Point Nemo.
Point Nemo is further from land than any other dot on the globe: 2,688 kilometres (about 1,450 miles) from the Pitcairn Islands to the north, one of the Easter Islands to the northwest, and Maher Island—part of Antarctica—to the South.
Some 250 to 300 spacecraft—which have mostly burned up as they carved a path through Earth's atmosphere—have been laid to rest there, he said.
By far the largest object descending from the heavens to splash down at Point Nemo, in 2001, was Russia's MIR space lab, which weighed 120 tonnes.
"It is routinely used nowadays by the (Russian) Progress capsules, which go back-and-forth to the International Space Station (ISS)," said Lemmens.
The massive, 420-tonne ISS also has a rendezvous with destiny at Point Nemo, in 2024.
This space debris is made up of things like used up rocket stages loose fragments from explosions and collisions, launch canisters dust, paint flakes some of which are orbiting the planet at speeds over 15,000 miles in hour (Mach 19.5). NASA tracks the larger pieces of space junk to make sure that they do not collide with new rockets we launch from Earth and the satellites orbiting the earth as well as the International Space Station.
We have left over 400,000 pounds of trash on the moon. We have 16,000 pounds on Mars, we have trash on Venus, Mercury, Titan. Galileo's death occurred by design when it was sent on a collision course with Jupiter on Sept. 21, 2003 and "burned up" in Jupiter's dense atmosphere. We now have artificial objects (space debris) leaving the Solar System, space probes and the upper stages of their launch vehicles, all launched by NASA. Three of the probes, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and New Horizons are still functioning and are regularly contacted by radio communication, while Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 are now derelict. In addition to these "spacecraft", some upper stages and de-spin weights are leaving the Solar System, assuming they continue on their trajectories. Interstellar space junk in the short span of 66 years we have become interplanetary and interstellar polluters.
The Kessler Syndrome is named after former NASA scientist Donald Kessler, who laid out the basic idea in a seminal 1978 paper.
The Kessler Syndrome describes, and warns of, a cascade of orbital debris that could potentially hinder humanity's space ambitions and activities down the road. The original paper predicted that satellite collisions would become a source of space junk by the year 2000, if not sooner, unless humanity changed how it lofted payloads to orbit.
This is all old data we are now launching more junk each day in to space and we have debris falling to earth at an alarming rate. We will soon be crashing the International Space Station in to the Earths space junkyard called Point Nemo.
Point Nemo is further from land than any other dot on the globe: 2,688 kilometres (about 1,450 miles) from the Pitcairn Islands to the north, one of the Easter Islands to the northwest, and Maher Island—part of Antarctica—to the South.
Some 250 to 300 spacecraft—which have mostly burned up as they carved a path through Earth's atmosphere—have been laid to rest there, he said.
By far the largest object descending from the heavens to splash down at Point Nemo, in 2001, was Russia's MIR space lab, which weighed 120 tonnes.
"It is routinely used nowadays by the (Russian) Progress capsules, which go back-and-forth to the International Space Station (ISS)," said Lemmens.
The massive, 420-tonne ISS also has a rendezvous with destiny at Point Nemo, in 2024.