The European Space Agency has released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That's about 6,000 satellites up there - of which only 800 remain operational - plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents.According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. While the idea of bringing back used stages and satellites back to Earth may seem too expensive, in the long run it's clear that leaving all this trash up there is going to have huge consequences to the development of space exploration and colonization.
(via Reality Carnival Unleashed)
2 comment(s):
That picture is not to scale and exaggerates the real situation. There are approximately 75 trillion square miles of space between an altitude of 62 miles (the formal definition of "space") and the geosynchronous orbit at 22,233 miles. Thousands of object, or even a million objects, do not even come close to filling up one percent of that much space.
"Cubic" miles. I meant cubic miles, not square miles.
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