You won’t believe what kind of mess we’ve made up into our atmosphere! As of 2013, more than 500,000 pieces of debris, the size of a marble or larger, travelling at speeds up to 28,164 km/h (17,500 mph), are orbiting our planet. More than 20,000 pieces are larger than a softball, and millions more are so small they can’t be tracked.
According to NASA scientist Mark Matney, the odds that any of the 7 billion people on Earth will be struck by a piece of the soon-to-fall satellite is 1 in 3,200, and the odds that you will be hit are 1 in several trillion.
I’ve found an excellent online visualization of objects in Earth orbit, that gives a great impression of the space junk surrounding our planet. I’ve also found another visualization (might only work on Google Chrome) that contains less information, but is still interesting to look at.
Online visualization of objects in Earth orbit.
It’s safe to say that the debris could become a major problem for everyone venturing out into space. There’s a growing need to tackle this sea of junk, and one of the solutions might be a satellite made to scoop up space junk called CleanSpace One.
CleanSpace One is being developed and built by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. It will utilise a net in the form of a cone that can gobble up space junk, and plunge back to Earth so it will burn up in the atmosphere. CleanSpace One might be launched in 2018. You can find out more about the project in the video below.
A giant Pac-Man to gobble up space debris
