SPACE JUNK Written by Chen Jian Xun Design and edit by Rebecca Sopacua
S PAC E junk
Space junk is any debri that stays in space and orbits around earth like paint chips, screws and bolts, metal chunks and decommissioned satellites.
Amount of of space space junk junk floating floating in in space space Amount Space junks are a big problem for space exploration especially now in 2020, as we have big corporations like SpaceX , NASA and other countries doing rocket launch tests and sending even more satellites into space. Which means that the risk of whatever kind of equipment that we send to space, will have a high risk of getting pelted by space junks traveling at high speeds. Which is not ideal for equipments that like GPS satellites that needs to be in orbit for a long time.
S AT E LL I T E
ISS
According to Natural History Museum (nhm),about 2000 active satellites are in space, 3000 decommissioned satellites, 34000 space debris that are over 10 centimeters in size and many more smaller pieces of space junk that could still be lethal to satellites and other machines in space.
Anti satellite rocket collision course The amount of space junk will continue to increase as we continue to make anti satellite missile tests like the US which have started to develop ballistic missiles and did a destruction test in 1985 which destroyed a gamma ray spectroscopy satellite. They did this as they heard the soviets also had a similar idea around the 1980s. China and India also had similar tests and had some successful tests but a handful of other countries also picked up with the idea though some went very successful. The results of these tests is that the satellites that were destroyed from the tests will explode and shoot fragments of metals orbiting in space and it's not like we don't have enough of that already.
Anti satellite rocket
Iridium Satellite and Russian satellite collision
Satellite collision
With the large amounts of active and inactive satellites in space it is inevitable that they might crash into each other and send pieces of metal flying in space to set off a chain reaction. Some crashes include the 2009 Iridium communications satellite and the a Russian satellite resulted in the destruction of both satellites.
We might as well be slowly creating a huge prison out of high speed space trash in the earth orbits for our selves as it may be impossible to escape earth's gravitational attraction without getting destroyed or damaged at earth's orbits.
INFORMATIONAL SOURCES Anti-satellite weapons :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon Satellite collisions : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_collision#:~:text=Strictly%20speaking%2C%20a%20satellite%20collision,with%20an%20object%20in%20o rbit. What is space junk: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-space-junk-and-why-is-it-a-problem.html#:~:text=Space%20junk%2C%20or%20space%20debris,have%2 0fallen%20off%20a%20rocket.
IMAGE SOURCES Space junk :https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.miami.edu Amount of space junk floating in space :https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.change.org%2Fphotos%2F9%2F satellite : https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com International space station: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk Anti satellite rocket: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesstoday.in Anti satellite rocket collision course: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fspacenews.com Satellite collision: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esa.int%2FEnabling_Support% Iridium Satellite and Russian satellite collision: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.cas.cn