Space trash may travel at speeds of up to 5 miles per second around the globe. An impact may travel at speeds of up to 15 kilometers per second or ten times the speed of a bullet. According to NASA experts, a marble-sized piece might collide with another item with the same force as a bowling ball moving at 300 miles per hour.
As it orbits the planet, the ISS passes through the same location every 93 minutes. Everybody on board feared an impact on that mid-November day. However, this was not the first or last occasion that a mission had been put at risk by space junk. The explosion forced NASA to cancel a planned spacewalk on November 30. Due to the inevitable Russian satellite, the Chinese space station, which had three astronauts on board, had to change its course. The ISS adjusted its trajectory just three days before the explosion to avoid hitting with space trash left by an earlier, broken-down spacecraft. On December 3, the ISS shifted course again to avoid junk from a separate broken-down spacecraft.
Space debris is becoming more of a problem. Indeed, garbage is currently the primary worry of those who research space traffic management. According to the European Space Agency, around 36,500 pieces of junk larger than 10 centimeters currently orbit Earth. There are around a million pieces ranging in diameter from 1 to 10 cm. More than 300 million tiny bits litter the area around space.
Radar is used by researchers to track the largest bits. However, the smallest cannot be exactly identified. For decades, space debris has been increasing. The majority of it is in what scientists refer to as low-Earth orbit. It circles the Earth at a height of around 620 miles. Some experts are concerned that people will not take the situation seriously until a disaster occurs. All I know is that this might end badly.
