Is Space Junk A Problem?
Far over our heads, tens of thousands of pieces of garbage orbit our planet. Over 50 countries contribute to the mess, and while we track over 20 000 objects, there are far more that we aren’t aware of. This debris is called “space junk” — and it can be anything from disused satellites to spent rocket stages. The existence of space junk is common knowledge, but what most people don’t know is that it’s becoming increasingly more problematic for us both in space and down on the ground.
The issues that space junk pose for spacecrafts are obvious. There’s always the possibility of a crash when these objects occupy much of Earth’s low orbit. Some theorize that if the density of junk becomes to high, it will be impossible to pass through Earth’s orbit. However, even more dangerous are the millions of tiny pieces of debris measuring less than 1 centimeter in diameter. Although an impact with one of these objects would have little to no effect on a spacecraft, hitting hundreds or thousands (which is difficult to avoid) can severely damage solar panels, telescopes, and trackers.
Even more frightening is something called “Kessler syndrome”. Kessler syndrome is a theoretical scenario in which the number of objects in LEO (Low Earth Orbit) becomes so high that junk will start colliding at high rates — creating more junk that will then collide with more junk and so on and so on until LEO is completely clogged.
This poses a threat to both spacecraft and us humans on Earth. In this scenario, anything we send to space will have almost no chance of passing through LEO and existing satellites stand a high risk of being seriously damaged. This is bad news for us because many of those satellites give us our phone service, weather forecast, internet, and GPS location — things our society can’t function without.
While this is a scary future, Kessler syndrome isn’t the only way space junk could affect the Earth’s surface. A huge majority of falling objects burn up on entry through Earth’s atmosphere, but large objects always have the possibility of making it through. NASA even says that on average, one piece of junk falls to Earth every day. There are many reported incidents of this junk injuring random citizens or damaging property.
While NASA and many other space agencies worldwide agree that space junk is a huge problem, there is still no concrete solution to getting rid of it. The current strategy used by NASA is simply cutting down on how much new junk is produced — there are now guidelines for how to prevent collisions and how to leave less junk behind. However, it’s clear that very soon, we will need to start removing this debris from our atmosphere or the consequences will be serious.
