Spacejunk in Earth's atmosphere revealed

The Telegraph ^ | 4/15/2008 | Paul Eccleston

[bruinbirdman]

It's more than 50 years since Russia signalled the start of the space race with the launch of Sputnik One.

For more than two decades from 1957 the Soviet Union and the USA competed in a battle to be the first to the stars.

The race ended in 1969 when the US delivered the coup de grace by landing Neil Armstrong safely on the Moon.

Now space flights are commonplace and Sir Richard Branson will soon be taking the first tourists on sub-orbital flights on his craft SpaceShipTwo.

In 1964 the first TV satellite was launched into a geostationary orbit in order to transmit the Olympic games from Tokyo.

Since then hundreds of communication satellites have been launched and Earth's atmosphere still bears the scars.

A European Space Agency (ESA) computer-generated picture shows a view from space with the planet surrounded by a snowstorm of space debris.

Computer-generated image of trackable objects currently in orbit around the Earth

Much of it is junk with telecommunications equipment that once cost millions now past its sell-by date yet still in orbit.

ESA says the number of objects in Earth's atmosphere has risen steadily increasing by 200 per year on average and that there are now 600 working satellites.

Collisions, explosions and lost or discarded material from space flights and rockets has resulted in the atmosphere resembling a junk yard with potentially millions of pieces of metal travelling in permanent orbit 20,000 miles above the Earth.

[bruinbirdman]

"this is a terribly old and rehashed news item."

Perhaps, the "computer-generated picture" is the focus of the article.

yitbos

[Army Air Corps]

NASA has a really cool animated version that allows you to click on any satellite and see a brief on the Sat (launch date, type, orbit inclination, altitude, country of origin, etc.). I have the site bookmarked. :-)

[BenLurkin]

This was told to me in the early 70s by a man with ties to the military side of our space program — that the Russians had a Cosmonaut in orbit who they could not retreive. The Americans were monitoring the radio communications and (or so this tale goes) listened to the panicing flyer as he pleaded with Soviet ground control to save him. Eventually the Cosmonaut ran out of air and died in orbit.

Have never been able to find confirmation. The guy was probably pulling my leg (?).

[BenLurkin]

Interesting.