The Space Junk That Threatens Future Missions

Since the 1957 launch of Sputnik I kicked off the space age, our skies have steadily been filling up with artificial satellites. There are about 7,000 in orbit right now, with many more on their way. So, what exactly are we going to do with all that junk in outer space? » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker (then hit the little 🔔 icon and select "all.") » Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com While space may be a pretty big place, there is a finite limit to just how much stuff can safely be whizzing around the Earth. And believe me, there is already a lot of junk up there. Of those 7,000 or so satellites I mentioned, about 3,000 of them are defunct and not serving any purpose. Some of them are huge, like ESA’s Envisat which is as big as a double-decker bus. There have been several close calls as dead satellites guided only by the hand of physics nearly collided. NASA estimates there are more than 23,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters in orbit around the earth, and there are hundreds of millions more pieces smaller than that. The worst case scenario was imagined by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler back in 1978. The so-named Kessler syndrome is where more satellites like Cosmos and Iridium collide and the resulting debris creates a runaway chain-reaction that damages more satellites, creating more debris that ultimately renders low-earth orbit unusable. #space #spacejunk #science #seeker #elements Read More: It’s Finally Time to Take Out the Space Trash https://www.wired.com/story/its-finally-time-to-take-out-the-space-trash/ "On March 22, Astroscale, a Tokyo-based startup collaborating with Japan’s space agency, JAXA, launched a magnetic space trash picker-upper called the End of Life Services by Astroscale demonstration, or ELSA-d." Earth's orbit is running out of real estate — but physicists are looking to expand the market https://academictimes.com/earths-orbit-is-r