Space Trash Accounts

1989/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronautika

The smallest fraction of space garbage can also resurrect the space suit. According to Canadian astronomer Sidney van den Bergh, the amount of garbage is doubling every ten years.

Astronomers are also concerned about this problem. When long exposure photographs are taken to record the luminous objects of the Universe, satellites orbiting the Earth leave their mark. These remains destroy one in three photographs.

The radar system against American missiles follows the 6,000 objects in orbit. Only 5% of them are active elites. Others are non-functioning satellites, launcher bits, fragments generated in the explosion of satellites, etc.

All these objects have a relatively large size, but if they are considered Van den Berghen other 60,000 that do not reach the size of the mail doorbell. Due to their small size and an approximate speed of 30,000 km/h, they can damage the astronaut's suit. It is estimated that by 2000 the probability of a satellite being emitted by an object the size of a coin a year will be 5%. Damage can be very high if the object hits an important satellite system.

Increasingly frequent satellite collisions are one of the main sources of garbage. The programs that Americans are carrying out for star wars also generate a lot of trash.

In the long run it will be difficult to avoid the accumulation of waste in space and as Van den Berh says “We cannot send a vacuum cleaner to absorb everything and finally the Earth will have a permanent ring of waste, like the rings of Saturn”.