8 years ago

Dr Karl: How much space junk exists, and how did it get there?

We humans are a messy lot. Space junk includes old satellites, spent rocket stages that were used to launch something, dust from solid rocket motors, and even coolant from obsolete Russian nuclear-powered satellites — which are still orbiting above us. There is about 1,900 tonnes of space junk in low Earth orbit, but almost all of it — about 98 per cent — is accounted for by just 1,500 objects, each over 100kg. In 1985, a single US test destroyed a one-tonne satellite at 525km of altitude, creating thousands of pieces of space junk bigger than 1cm. Looking at a different spacecraft, in the Space Shuttle a window had to be replaced every second flight — due to running into this invisible space junk.

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