You Forgot To Get Rid Of The Trash!
Episode 1: The Junkyard Above Our Heads 🔩
Carlos, do you really have to humiliate me in front of your audience because of the way my room looks?
I never said that, reader. But to be fair, even my room looks like a mess! I always wait until the last minute to clean up my room right before I have to catch my bus to go to school. Thankfully, my parents always remind me to clean up my room before doing anything else, so that problem is quickly solved!
However, not all messes can be cleaned up in a matter of minutes. The biggest example of a mess that could not be cleaned up in time to binge-watch your next Netflix show would be the space junk zooming around Earth in Low-Earth Orbit & Geo-Stationary Orbit at around 20 km/s. Sounds like a fun chore to do for the sake of space exploration, right?
Hahaha, you’re SO funny, Carlos. Plus, isn't it America’s responsibility for putting all those rockets & satellites up in space?
It’s not really America’s responsibility to clean up the space junk. . .
When Was The Origin?
On June 1st, 1978, NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler published a research paper on the potential outcomes of Space Junk that would be eventually known as “The Kessler Syndrome”. In a nutshell, Kessler is proposing that as the number of satellites/rockets are sent up into orbit around the Earth, the probability of two or more satellites colliding with one another and destroying each other is will also increase rapidly.
Okay, but what does that mean, specifically?
The satellites have more potential in crashing with one another, therefore, if two satellites collide, they can make millions of smaller pieces of space junk, and we would end up in a deeper rabbit hole than what was originally in with two satellites. Therefore, the space junk will increase at an exponential rate, and eventually, the Earth could have its own asteroid belt; not out of meteorites, but out of space junk itself. Do you know what that could mean to Space Exploration?
Hmm… what could happen, Carlos?
We will be trapped on Earth forever. The rockets that we send up into space will get bombarded by space junk and explode. That means no more photos of nebulas, no more Mars Colonization, and-
Uh, Carlos… Elon’s crying…
Anyways, moving on before he pulls out his flamethrower!🔥
Okay, then. But Carlos, if there is so much in space, why cant we just go up there and grab the tiny pieces ourselves? It can’t be that hard…
What Is In Space?
Besides the luxurious telescopes for the images of nebulas, satellites that allow you to communicate with anyone around the world, and the ISS which can serve as a space laboratory and a temporary home for astronauts, there are a lot of old rockets and un-operational satellites.
But not all of these rockets are giant lumps of metal. Some of these pieces of space junk range from half a football field to micrometers in diameter.
But Carlos, why are you so scared about something the size of an ant or a drop of water? I don't feel anything when a drop of water hits me in the head.
You see, the rules of velocity and kinetic energy play a different game when orbiting in space rather than on Earth. Let’s use that raindrop you were mentioning as a demonstration, reader.
If a raindrop that weighs about 0.2 grams hits your head, the raindrop carries 0.008J of energy (0.8 millijoules). Joules is the SI Unit of Energy & Work. A joule can be defined as the amount of energy exerted when a force of one Newton is applied over a displacement of one meter.
Okay, Carlos, that doesn't sound bad at all…
But if that same raindrop weighing in at 0.2 grams hits your head in Low-Earth Orbit acting as a piece of space debris would have 8100J of energy; about 1 million times more energy than the raindrop on Earth. The only difference between the two raindrops is their velocity, but that velocity is fast enough for the raindrop to split you in half!
Oh, Jesus, that IS worrying! But how is that velocity possible? Describe that to me, Carlos.
Kinetic Energy
This is the equation that makes the consequences of getting struck by a small object much more catastrophic; a.k.a. The Kinetic Energy Formula!
The letter V in the equation is what makes the difference in the outcome.
The mass of the object is directly proportional, but your velocity is squared.
So if the velocity of a small object was traveling 5 times faster than a speeding bullet, it actually has 25 times the kinetic energy of a speeding bullet.
No way! So, what should we do about that?
We are currently trying to do our best, but space is the largest thing we know of, and when we have astronauts there, this micro-debris cannot be avoided entirely. To demonstrate the power of micro-debris, here is a photo was taken from the International Space Station (ISS) with a 7mm shattered window.
Holy s-
Okay, let’s move on to the next problem of space junk!
Wait, Carlos! But if Earth is approximately 71% water, so what are the chances of it affecting my life? Does it even matter?
Yes, Space Junk Is A Problem!
Despite only 200–400 pieces of space junk crashing to Earth per year, you won’t have to worry about a piece of metal killing you instantly. The pieces of the spacecraft burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere upon reentry. This is because of the amount of heat that is generated by drag. This drag is what allows for the spacecraft to slow down its velocity and reenter Earth’s atmosphere.
Satellites mainly use radio waves for sending information, and it’s also the reason why we are able to communicate from across the world. However, if satellites constantly collided with one another, we would no longer have a GPS System to get us to our friends' house, no more Internet Surfing, no more “Black Mirror” episodes on Netflix, and no more TikTok Dances!
No way! That’s filling me up with sadness, Carlos! Well, is there a possible solution to clean up OUR mess?
Normally, an object 242 kilometers above the Earth would have to travel around the Earth at approximately 27358.848 km/h, also known as orbital velocity. To make the object come down to Earth and evaporate, you need to slow down the orbital velocity… and that’s a big problem to tackle…
