An object from the sky smashed through my roof: Space debris is starting to be a problem (english.elpais.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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The international community is pushing for the approval of rigorous standards that track and limit the obsolete objects that can pass through the atmosphere and cause material damage on Earth

At dawn on Good Friday, a luminous trail crossed the sky of the Spanish Mediterranean coast until it disappeared behind the marine horizon. After the initial stupor, the military commanders in charge of supervising the area reported that it was a “grazing meteoroid” and not a ballistic missile or a Starlink satellite, as was initially thought. The scare brought to the fore the importance of controlling the space debris orbiting Earth.

According to the latest data from the European Space Agency (ESA), some 11,500 tons of objects launched into space are moving at high speed above our heads. The trail pollution is made up of one million pieces of waste, measuring between one and 10 centimeters, and 36,500 larger objects. But that’s only the space debris that’s registered, because not all space trash is cataloged and tracked by the databases that were created after the s tart of the space race (the ESA monitors about 35,150).

Space debris can be as large as a car or as small as a paint chip. “The real danger is the speed at which they move, more than 28,000 kilometers per hour [17,400 miles per hour], which turns them into real projectiles,” says Efrén Díaz, head of technology and space law at the Mas y Calvet Law Firm and general secretary of the Spanish Association of Aeronautical and Space Law (AEDAE). At this speed, the impact of a sphere measuring just over a centimeter could cause the same damage as a car traveling at 50 km/h.

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[-] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 years ago

If only someone could have seen this coming.

Other than scientists who have been warning about the risks of excess space debris for years...

[-] Zehzin@lemmy.world 14 points 2 years ago

Space debris isn't real. And if it is it's not caused by humans.

[-] ButtCheekOnAStick@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I don't think they caught your joke.

[-] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

Is that because you think the earth is flat?

[-] Zehzin@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The Earth would be flat, if it was real. Wake up sheeple

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

Not to mention potentially rendering swaths of any orbital lane beyond LEO useless.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

I'm really less worried about what they're doing to the surface than what they're doing to the atmosphere. And the number of launches is increasing by huge amounts every year.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-new-space-race-could-be-harming-the-earths-atmosphere

[-] hk_a@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

The atmosphere causes almost all meteorites to burn up before hitting the surface, I imagine that the same holds for space debris. So the concern about space debris hitting your house seems to be more about drawing attention to the very real problem of space debris to orbiting satellites.

[-] capem@startrek.website 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I keep saying, space is mostly a waste of money until we have better technology and solve more of our problems here, first.

But hey, it makes rich people richer faster than building houses for the poor so guess what we're going to do?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

Communications satellites and globally-accessible internet are not a waste of money because they will bring the world together to help develop that technology (yes, I realize there is a bad side to that too). The problem is the way it's being done... launching over 5000 Starlink satellites alone so far.

this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024

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