i Save Earth.org

It looks like we have not even spared the space as for as environmental mess is concerned. Like the Earth’s environment, the space environment is getting more and more cluttered. There are currently millions of man-made orbital ruins that make up “space junk”. Unfortunately , for the past 45 years of space exploration have generated a lot junk. According to report from U.S. National Research Council, there’s far too much space debris floating around the planet’s orbit. Now the amount of space junk has reached a “tipping point, and it not only poses serious risk to astronauts because space shuttles could easily collide with debris but there is real danger of falling it to earth. Report says there are some 22,000 objects - bits of old space shuttles, remnants of satellites, and more. Whats more, the objects have become so plentiful, they tend to smash into each other, shattering into pieces and making it even bigger mess of things.

Space junk can be anything from hatches blown off space modules, paint fragments from the space shuttles, or satellites that no longer work. Man made debris orbits at a speed of roughly 17,500 miles/hour ( 28,000 Km/h). Think of damage even a small speck of paint could do if it hit a space craft at a such high speed. Then there is always a danger of space junk falling back to Earth.

We need to help capture junk that’s floating out there in space. Who is going to do it? This is the biggest question? NASA contributed about 30% of space junk and I think they are the one who should initiate this process of cleaning up the space. There has to be an international effort to deal with this huge problem.

Abhi Bhardwaj Ph.D