Pieces of debris, perhaps paint shards or metal shards from a satellite, are only a thousandth of a millimeter in size – no bigger than a single cell of E. coli bacteria.
But how can something so small cause such visible damage? “Everything depends on speed,” said Vishnu Reddy, an astronomer at the University of Arizona.
Objects at the height of the ISS and most other satellites — about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth — circle around our planet once every 90 minutes, according to the European Space Agency. Its speed is over 15,600 miles per hour (25,200 km/h), 10 times the rate of fire of the average bullet on Earth, Robert Frost, an instructor and flight supervisor at NASA, wrote on Quora.
The energy of a collision is not only related to the size of an object; speed (speed and direction) are equally important. That’s why small bullets can do a lot of damage. When moving at high enough speed, any object can be dangerous, Reddy told Live Science.
Remember that speed is additive, says Kerri Cahoy, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So, if two objects move in opposite directions when they collide, it increases the energy of the collision.
“Think of it like driving down the highway,” Cahoy told Live Science. Two fast-moving cars moving in the same direction could touch and “barely kiss each other,” he said. But if a vehicle – even a light one, such as a motorcycle – crashes into a car while traveling in the opposite direction, it could be disastrous for both drivers, he said.
Similarly, in space, fast-moving paint smudges that collide with the ISS can leave relatively large marks.
In space, satellites, spacecraft, and debris orbit in many different paths. One object may orbit horizontally around the equator, another object may rotate vertically around the poles.
Some objects even move “backwards”, meaning they rotate against the Earth’s orbit. As more and more debris clutters space, the low-Earth orbit (where the ISS rotates) turns into a busy highway like during rush hour. “There’s a lot of potential for damage,” Cahoy told Live Science.
The astronauts on the ISS were lucky that the larger debris didn’t hit their window. Microbial-sized fragments may leave only a dent, but pea-sized fragments could disable critical flight systems, according to the European Space Agency.
A piece of debris the size of a ping-pong ball? “That would be catastrophic,” said Reddy. At that size, space debris could cause the space station to drop its pressure rapidly, making it impossible for astronauts to breathe on board, Reddy said.
Space junk is a growing problem. Earth’s orbit contains at least 128 million pieces of debris, and 34,000 of them are larger than about 4 inches (10 centimeters), according to the Natural History Museum in London – and those are just pieces large enough to detect.
These tiny pieces are formed when satellites are naturally subjected to conditions under extreme ultraviolet radiation, when larger pieces of space debris collide or when satellites are intentionally destroyed. The larger part includes the 3,000 derelict satellites, as well as bolts and other parts released by the spacecraft during launch.
By tracking space junk, scientists can tell countries and companies when to move the spacecraft out of the path of speeding debris, Reddy said. The ISS has performed 25 of these maneuvers since 1999, according to the Natural History Museum. And researchers are developing ways to get trash out of space, such as using hooks, nets, and magnets to pull it back into Earth’s atmosphere.
Too much space junk can harm humans to use Earth’s orbit for satellites and other types of spacecraft. It’s important to address the space debris problem to prevent further accumulation, Reddy said.
“We rely on space for many things: communications, weather forecasting, banking, entertainment and the military,” he said. “In terms of our progress as a civilization, we would go back a lot of steps if we didn’t have access to outer space.”
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