Spacejunk in Earth's atmosphere revealed

[Hum]

It's more than 50 years since Russia signalled the start of the space race with the launch of Sputnik One.

For more than two decades from 1957 the Soviet Union and the USA competed in a battle to be the first to the stars.

The race ended in 1969 when the US delivered the coup de grace by landing Neil Armstrong safely on the Moon.

Now space flights are commonplace and Sir Richard Branson will soon be taking the first tourists on sub-orbital flights on his craft SpaceShipTwo.

In 1964 the first TV satellite was launched into a geostationary orbit in order to transmit the Olympic games from Tokyo.

Since then hundreds of communication satellites have been launched and Earth's atmosphere still bears the scars.

A European Space Agency (ESA) computer-generated picture shows a view from space with the planet surrounded by a snowstorm of space debris.

Much of it is junk with telecommunications equipment that once cost millions now past its sell-by date yet still in orbit.

ESA says the number of objects in Earth's atmosphere has risen steadily increasing by 200 per year on average and that there are now 600 working satellites.

Collisions, explosions and lost or discarded material from space flights and rockets has resulted in the atmosphere resembling a junk yard with potentially millions of pieces of metal travelling in permanent orbit 20,000 miles above the Earth.

source

[MGS4-SS]

Slowly forming a metal shield against that gamma burst that might hit us, though even all the metal in Earth wouldn't deflect it.

[Shibby]

I suppose they need to do more than just move the oribit of a satellite out the way, they need to smash it into something to burn it up.

I suggest we build a big satellite that can capture satellites and toasts them!

[primexx]

I suppose they need to do more than just move the oribit of a satellite out the way, they need to smash it into something to burn it up.

I suggest we build a big satellite that can capture satellites and toasts them!

...or just build end-of-life procedures into the sats so they automatically fly themselves in the general direction of the sun when they expire...

[Hum]

Send up nano-bots that will shred the junk into little pieces, that will safely burn up on re-entry in to Earth's atmosphere. :laugh:

I wonder if my lost can opener is floating up there ...

[Rob2687]

Wait until it all collects in a disk shaped region and form planetary rings.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Wait until it all collects in a disk shaped region and form planetary rings.

This.

I've always thought Earth needed a ring.

[Josh]

So how many of those dots represent stuff left on or around the moon?

[Hum]

^ This is for Earth Josh, not the Moon. ;)

[Josh]

:laugh: I read the article ;) I know that. But some of them are rather far out of the atmosphere and seem to adhere to an very noticeable orbit in that image.