Space Junk Around Earth

Space junk can be bad news for an orbiting satellite.
Space junk around earth. In fact there are an estimated 500 000 or so smaller orbital debris between one and 10 centimeters in diameter and about 21 000 larger bits larger than 10 centimeters spinning around earth. Communications satellite owned by a private company called iridium collided with a non functioning russian satellite. Earth s orbit is segregated into three distinct regions. Of the 500 000 estimated pieces of debris orbiting earth about 20 000 of them are bigger than a softball.
The momentous event heralded the start of the space age as. Pieces of space junk in this region are impacted by the atmosphere. Space junk has been amassing since the first human made satellite sputnik 1 escaped earth s gravitational pull on october 4 1957. Low earth orbit leo covers the area 125 1 250 miles 200 2000 km.
On february 11 2009 a u s. These include derelict spacecraft nonfunctional spacecraft and abandoned launch vehicle stages mission related debris and particularly numerous in earth orbit fragmentation debris from the breakup of derelict rocket bodies and spacecraft. Orbital debris or space junk is any man made object in orbit around the earth that no longer serves a useful purpose. See stuff in space on github.
Debris orbiting earth makes it difficult for space agencies and companies to launch missions risking damage to. Cnn one of the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris fell back down and landed on earth today passing directly over los angeles and central park in new york city and landing in the. Dcode how we can save the earth and space in this fascin. Space junk is a problem that just won t go away and it keeps getting worse.
Those larger chunks of junk along with an additional 30 000 smaller objects are tracked.