If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Space is vast. Yet Earth orbits are becoming increasingly littered with debris (speckled graphic). A satellite could be demolished if struck by a 10-centimeter piece of junk, about the size of a softball. Even a one-centimeter tidbit could disable a spacecraft. And the more functioning, defunct or fragmented objects up there, the more that decay in the atmosphere (pink stripe). The collision problem has become so serious that in 2016 the European Space Agency (ESA), which tracks the objects, announced it might capture derelict satellites in low orbits, starting in 2023. Clutter is rising fast as more countries and companies launch electronics. In February 2017 India sent 101 shoebox-sized “cubesats” into a low orbit on a single rocket.
Credit: Jan Willem Tulp; Sources: “Space Debris by the Numbers” (information correct as of January 2018), European Space Agency www.esa.int; Space Debris: The ESA Approach. ESA Br-336. European Space Agency, March 2017 ; ESA Space Debris Office discoweb.esoc.esa.int (raw data)
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
Thank you,
Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
