Space debris around Earth is a major hazard.
It is amazing to know that a paint chip 0.2 mm in size that was floating around in space managed to damage a space shuttle window. A paint chip so tiny that most would not even see it, assumes huge proportions when we assign a speed of 10km per second to it.
At that speed, a miniscule paint chip, nail part, a metal spring, etc., all of which are floating around Earth could break a satellite and cause fatalities to astronauts who are out of their space craft for routine EVAs – Extravehicular Activities – in short, a space-walk.
Space debris is the occupational hazards of space exploration and sending satellites and space crafts into outer space.
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Orbital debris comprise of bigger chunks of non-functional spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicle stages, mission-related debris and fragmentation debris to smaller parts like bits of exploded rockets, nuts, bolts, springs, wires, cable fragments, etc.
Space exploration has put about 20,000 larger pieces, 500,000 smaller pieces and millions of tiny fragments that cannot be tracked into the junk zone around earth.
"The greatest risk to space missions comes from non-trackable debris," said Nicholas Johnson, NASA chief scientist for orbital debris.
For the number of debris floating around, there have been very few collisions.
In 1996, debris from a French rocket that exploded a decade ago damaged a French satellite which came into the debris' path. In 2007, China used a missile to destroy a defunct weather satellite and in the process, added 3000 bits of debris. In 2009, a decommissioned Russian satellite collided and destroyed a functioning U.S. Iridium commercial satellite adding more than 2,000 pieces in orbit around Earth.
As man's space endeavours grow, people need to examine the ways they can reduce space debris and also find a way to protect other space crafts and astronauts from the ever increasing number of space debris in Earth orbit.
