Space Trash

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.
Space trash. Orbital debris commonly known as space junk exists at all levels of orbit but is especially concentrated in low earth orbit. It had broken off of a soviet military weather. Orbital debris is any man made object in orbit about the earth which no longer serves a useful function. Over 21 000 pieces of space trash larger than 4 inches 10 centimeters and half a million bits of junk between 1 cm and 10 cm are estimated to circle the planet.
Space junk has the potential to damage working satellites and. Even if spacex can manage to keep its area in space clean there s a line of other companies waiting to build. Nasa admin warns iss space junk problem is getting worse after 3 near collisions. There are more than 20 000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the earth.
A defunct russian satellite and a spent chinese rocket just floating around high over earth could smash into each other within a few. Space debris also known as space junk space pollution space waste space trash or space garbage is a term for defunct human made objects in space principally in earth orbit which no longer serve a useful function. Such debris includes nonfunctional spacecraft abandoned launch vehicle stages mission related debris and fragmentation debris. Space junk has been amassing since the first human made satellite sputnik 1 escaped earth s gravitational pull on october 4 1957.
The momentous event heralded the start of the space age as. 36912 in an extensive inventory of orbital artifacts known as the norad catalogue. 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.