Topic Reading-Vol.2124-2/3/2018

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

This company wants to clean up space

Space is supposedly clean and quiet. No air, sound or gravity. But in fact, there are millions of pieces of space debris, broken or torn pieces of human-made objects in Earth orbit, such as old satellites and spent rocket stages. Some of them are as large as satellites or large enough to be tracked, but most of them are smaller than 1 cm. Too small to worry about? The problem is there are too many of them in space and they travel too fast. The speed of such debris is nearly seven times faster than a bullet, or over 10,000km per hour. Any flying object at that speed could cause substantial or catastrophic damage to a spacecraft or satellite. Furthermore, when such object hits each other, more pieces of space debris are created. As more satellites are being launched and planned to earth’s orbit for commercial, science or military use, the chances for such collisions are increasing. Sounds like dumping trash without any thought of collection or clean up, doesn’t it?

Now there is a company that wants to tackle this present and clear danger. But how?

Enjoy watching the video to find what methods are being planned to clean space.

If you want to know what it’s like to be hit by space debris, remember or check a space movie “Zero Gravity.”

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/06/13/vision-the-future-of-japan-space-sweepers-orig.cnn/video/playlists/vision-future-of-japan/