Space Junk facts
While investigating facts about Space Junk Map and Space Junkies, I found out little known, but curios details like:
In 2014, the International Space Station had to move 3 times in order to avoid being hit by space junk moving at 17,000 mph
how much space junk is there?
Space junk destroys around one satellite each year
What space junk made of?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what space junk is out there. Here are 28 of the best facts about Space Junk Song and Space Junk Tracker I managed to collect.
what space junk is orbiting earth?
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Parkinsons law is the adage that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion", with variations of the principle including “The more money you earn the more money you spend,” or “The bigger the available space, the more junk it can hold.”
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The amount of space junk around our planet is vast, extremely fast, impacts space launches and we're running the risk of locking ourselves into our planet.
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There is so much space junk floating around Earth, it appears to have a ring
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Astroscale is a company with the goal of becoming the leader in space junk cleanup.
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The density of space junk (moving at 17,000 mph) is high enough, and increasing fast enough, to eventually render space activities and the use of satellites infeasible for many generations - we're walling ourselves in with space garbage.
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China has polluted space with more junk in one mishap than any other country.
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Vanguard 1 is the oldest piece of space junk. It is expected to orbit the planet for about 240 more years before it enters the atmosphere.
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The International Space Station had to move three times during 2014 in order to avoid being hit by lethal space junk moving at 17,000 mph
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Scientists had to create gecko-like feet to grip space junk as suction tech and sticky things don't work in the cold vacuum of space
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There's a "graveyard orbit" where space junk is intentionally left
Why space junk is dangerous?
You can easily fact check why doesn't space junk fall to earth by examining the linked well-known sources.
A woman named Lottie Williams was hit by space debris in 1997 and is thought to be the only one to be hit by falling space junk.
There are more than 500,000 piece of 'space junk' orbiting the earth - source
Only one person has ever been hit by falling space junk. In 1997 Lottie Williams of Tulsa, OK was hit in the back by a piece of mesh cloth that was later determined to have come from a returning Delta II rocket. She thought someone had tapped her on the shoulder. - source
July 12, 1979, NASA's Skylab station plummeted towards the earth, burning and breaking up as it crashed through the atmosphere. Pieces of the station landed around Esperance in Western Australia. Esperance council sent NASA $400 fine for littering space junk, which was reportedly never paid. - source
What happens when space junk hits earth?
In 1996, a piece of radioactive space junk was on a collision course with Australia and triggered an emergency response from the White House.
How does space junk affect the environment?
about the Kessler Syndrome, and that society is on a path to creating a blanket of space junk fragments around the earth. This could effectively cease the possibility of space exploration for multiple future generations.
In 1997 a Tulsa resident became the first (and so far only) person to be hit by space junk.
There are billions of pieces, around 5,000 tonnes of "space junk" floating around the earth.
About The Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, also known as Point Nemo is a location in the Pacific Ocean where countries and organizations aim their space junk as they fall back to Earth.
Someone actually got hit with space junk before
