The space around Earth is getting cluttered – not because of something mysterious and otherworldly. It’s because we can’t stop littering, even in space.
Click start to play today’s Spell It, where we learn how our space debris is ‘piling’ up at disastrous levels.
Space trash is a problem, and it’s growing. Comprising discarded launch vehicles, or parts of spacecraft, the debris floats around hundreds of kilometres above Earth. Already this year, there have been two incidents that have raised a cause for alarm.
On January 27, researchers watched in horror as two giant pieces of space junk – an upper stage of a rocket and a defunct satellite – came within six metres of each other. If they had collided, they would have generated thousands of debris fragments that would have stayed in orbit for centuries. Then, on February 6, a news report alerted the world about an old Russian satellite breaking into 85 fragments large enough to be tracked from Earth, adding to the already-cluttered space.
According to a November 2021 report by the World Economic Forum, space debris orbits the Earth at enormous speeds – about 25,265km/h – and although it is unlikely to hinder space exploration, it could cause significant damage to a satellite or a spacecraft, in case of a collision. Debris near the International Space Station (ISS), for instance, orbits our planet at least 15 times a day, and increases the risk of a crash.
There are estimated to be about half a million pieces of debris larger than one centimetre, and 100 million pieces that are one millimetre or larger, in near-Earth space. The US government also tracks 23,000 pieces of debris that are larger than the size of a baseball.
Surprisingly, it’s not the hundreds of new spacecrafts, launched in recent years, that seem to be a problem. One of the worst offenders, according to a February 2023 report in the space news website Space.com, is Cold War-era spacecraft.
Older, chunky satellites and spent rockets, which were part of the Cold War era and early 2000s, dominate today’s debris. Newer satellites have propulsion systems that allow them to avoid collisions, but derelict objects have no way of manoeuvring away from each other.
One of the biggest hazards is the SL-16, a nine-tonne, 11m-long upper section of Russia’s Zenit rocket, and it's one of 18 such rocket stages that currently circle Earth. Because of their massive size, any potential collision could produce an enormous cascade of space debris that could trigger the Kessler syndrome – a series of unstoppable collisions, like the one shown in the 2013 Oscar-winning Hollywood movie, Gravity.
Even the Hubble Space Telescope, which has a little over 10 years of life left in it, could become a troubling piece of debris once its mission is completed. At 12.2 tonnes, it’s heavy and orbits relatively low (about 535km) above the Earth’s surface. According to US space agency Nasa, debris that’s in orbit below 600km will fall back to Earth at some point, while debris that’s above 1,000km will continue circling the planet for over a century. In Hubble’s case, because of its size, it’s unlikely to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere during re-entry – and chunks of it are likely to land on the planet’s surface, possibly causing damage to aircraft in the air, humans, or infrastructure on the ground.
Thankfully, some agencies and entrepreneurs are doing something about the situation. Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency have already started partnering with start-ups to help with removal of space debris. A Japan-based private company, Astroscale, is set to launch the world’s first debris removal mission, while a Swiss start-up called ClearSpace is readying itself for a clean-up mission in 2025.
Is it finally time to pick up our space trash? Play today’s Spell It and tell us what you think at games@gulfnews.com.
